Slashdot Mirror
Company Uses 3D Printing and Design To Change the Way We Look At Prosthetics
An anonymous reader writes UNYQ (pronounced: unique), a start-up based in San Francisco and Seville, has set out to change the way we look at prosthetics by selling affordable 3D printed prosthetic leg covers, known as "fairings," directly to consumers. The company was co-founded by Eythor Bender, who is best known for developing a prototype bionic exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to walk again. Bender, who has worked with the disabled for over 20 years, was frustrated by the lack of consideration of style in the medical device development process. Despite all the progress made in other areas, the devices still look more or less like a "wooden stick." Bender wants to challenge what we think is possible with prosthetics.
"Bite my shiny, metal ass!"
[sorry, someone had to say it...]
If I lose a leg I want a cover that makes it look like a machine gun, separate from the one for daily use.
I want a GAU-8A Avenger (scaled to fit)!
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
A guy quoted in the article said something like, "I've never had someone tell me my leg was badass before." This (seemed to me like) was said in a positive way. Dude is an athlete.
I have to say, I think these guys hit it right on the nose. Why did all prosthetics before look like metal poles or wooden sticks? Why can't they be leg-shaped, like a mannequin? Why can't they be all colorful or sleek, make you look like Iron Man or have your favorite sports team or whatever on it?
I can't even imagine what being an amputee is like, but this seems like a positive, morale-boosting step in the right direction.
Super kudos to them, and super awesome way to show how 3D printing is awesome.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
Make the medical device the prosthetic and the joint connection. The sleeve becomes a cosmetic device in this instance and can be switched out and whatnot without effecting the function of the medical device.
Hey! Listen.
Adblock everything. Ads don't respect you? Don't respect them.
and including the biocompatibility test results report. What you make a medical device out of matters!
I'm just going to go out on a limb, since the dude has been working with handicapped people professionally for 20 years and has even created an exoskeleton that allows parapalegics to walk, that he knows all about how to comply with the law. Now carry on with your armchair advice!
That's a valid option to improve your experience. I like the AC's approach too, if a site is overbearing with their multi-page articles, overlays, and ads, just stop reading the page at all and don't go back. That's the true method to "vote with your feet" on the web.
There's a lot of skill involved in making good orthotics, and I'd expect the same to hold true with prosthetics in general.
My wife has spina bifida, and needs custom-fitted braces. Most of the formerly-independent manufacturers in Austin (which we just moved from) have been bought out by a company that does consistently shoddy work, making one pair after another that was painful to use. Here in Chicago, she went to the place recommended by a research clinic in town that has a focus on adult spina bifida patients (one of seven in the country). I was expecting the orthoptist they recommended to be doing something cutting-edge -- 3D printing off of a scan, or such -- but the process was the traditional way, and matched what had been used to make her last good pair of braces over a decade ago -- traditional casting, a whole lot of experimentation and detailed questions about how things worked for her, and production with a plastic malleable enough to allow adjustments to be made after-the-fact.
If this ends up as a science, rather than an art, I could see it becoming a fully automated process that folks could do at home. As it is, though, there's a big difference between having orthotics made by someone who has a knack for it and someone who just learned the rote steps to go through... and, by their nature, anything a computer can do is going to be rote.
I'm not exactly an armchair advisor. I develop software for a company which makes a medical product.