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What Happens When Your Own Limb Is Almost Good Enough?

Posted by timothy on from the give-me-a-robotic-exoskeleton dept.

derekmead writes: While the media might focus on prosthetics, the technology and techniques involved in limb salvage have advanced tremendously, too, spurred in large part by America's recent military conflicts. Now, when a soldier or civilian faces a brutal limb injury, they have choices—save the limb, or amputate. Be a limb salvage patient, or an amputee. Reconstruct the limb you were born with, out of the pieces you have left over, or lose that limb altogether. And that choice is, increasingly, a really difficult one.

34 comments

  1. First post by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 0

    Soon to be amputated.

  2. Why bother? by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

    Just put the head in a jar in front of the TV.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. In Will Reynold's case by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

    I think I would have taken amputation. Just so long as they set me up with some kind of sweet Deus Ex-style augmentations!

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    1. Re:In Will Reynold's case by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      You can change your mind and take amputation later, you can't change your mind and get your hand/leg back. With the things that stem cell research are pointing to, you might be able to regenerate your lost parts either way.

    2. Re:In Will Reynold's case by mysidia · · Score: 1

      You can change your mind and take amputation later

      Ability to change your mind is a great idea..... especially if you can grow an entirely brand new body and have your mind transferred to the new body through a simple process, with your choice of keeping or changing your physical appearance, that would be ideal.

      It would be even better if this mind transfer could be done almost entirely in "software", so only select physical parts of your brain actually need to move at a time, and essentially, your mind and body will be completely replaced with new cells, but you'll retain every memory and all knowledge and such you had before, even if your newly built body is 30 years younger than the one you are changing mind from.

    3. Re:In Will Reynold's case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need a -1 Idiotic choice.

    4. Re:In Will Reynold's case by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      Well, you can't really do any of that stuff, but you can change your mind and go for the amputation later, as GP said...

    5. Re:In Will Reynold's case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After the transfer, what are you going to do with your old body?

    6. Re:In Will Reynold's case by goarilla · · Score: 1

      Prosthetics are a long way off from "superlimbs".
      It takes proper training to be able to even use current gen prosthetics.
      And both scenario's are coupled with a lot of pain and hardship: nerve damage, ghost limb syndrome, ...

    7. Re:In Will Reynold's case by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You can change your mind and take amputation later

      Ability to change your mind is a great idea..... especially if you can grow an entirely brand new body and have your mind transferred to the new body through a simple process, with your choice of keeping or changing your physical appearance, that would be ideal.

      It would be even better if this mind transfer could be done almost entirely in "software", so only select physical parts of your brain actually need to move at a time, and essentially, your mind and body will be completely replaced with new cells, but you'll retain every memory and all knowledge and such you had before, even if your newly built body is 30 years younger than the one you are changing mind from.

      I'm sure this will be a matter of routine within twenty years or so. You'll be able to 3D print a new body and download your mind/personality into it as easy as installing an operating system from a thumb drive.

      As a bonus, our new cyborg bodies will be powered by cold fusion so we'll be able to live on Mars (or in Interstellar Space) indefinitely without needing any external life support or human contact.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    8. Re:In Will Reynold's case by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      After the transfer, what are you going to do with your old body?

      Have sex with it, then eat it.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    9. Re:In Will Reynold's case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'll be able to 3D print a new body and download your mind/personality into it

      In your case, it'd fit on a floppy.

  4. Re:Horse cocks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You bring shame to horses with your genitals?

    I'd be careful about where you announce such things, beastality isn't exactly legal everywhere.

  5. offline mode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTH? No login on /. today? Expired SSL certs? This is how Dice manages their web sites?

  6. Stumped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dunno. The question has me stumped.

  7. Easy Choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The choice is easy only one cannot be undone. Attempt to salvage and if that doesn't work out well the person can choose to amputate later.

    1. Re:Easy Choice by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Not that easy.
      You have your body part, however you live your life in pain with reduced ability. Or get an prosthetic which your can regain more mobility with less pain.
      I have seen people with prosthetic limbs and not just athletes, they move around as well as we do and you may not notice an issue until you see the prosthetic.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  8. Who needs legs? by tepples · · Score: 2

    I think I would have taken amputation.

    Case in point: You don't need legs to skate or surf or do gymnastics or swing like Spider-Man.

    1. Re:Who needs legs? by kencf0618 · · Score: 1

      Or to dance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    2. Re:Who needs legs? by doccus · · Score: 1

      I think I would have taken amputation.

      Case in point: You don't need legs to skate or surf or do gymnastics or swing like Spider-Man.

      Well, no.. but they're handy for stopping, though..

  9. aging article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nothing like a link to a study from 2010...

  10. Both options kind of suck by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Limb salvage --- likely to never be 100% of what it was before.

    Amputee --- now you have non-biological components to maintain that are probably not as robust as what you were born with.

    I'm really hoping Option 3. will come out before too long. Use technology to construct and grow new organs, skin, bones, muscles, nerves, and other biological components to replace damaged ones..... in other words, build an entirely new limb, if a limb was lost. Build an entirely new ear, or eye, mouth, kidney, stomach, heart, etc, to completely replace a damaged one with a perfect compatible one.

    1. Re:Both options kind of suck by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      The non-biological components are definitely more robust. You can just plug in new ones. Even do upgrades. The first thing I'd do after the amputation is dedicate a bunch of time to learning as much about prosthetics and 3D printing as I could. "Doctor heal thyself" would be a pretty good thing to dedicate the rest of my life to.

      They obviously wouldn't be as dexterous as a full recovery. So staying biological for a spell first to make that attempt would be good first.

    2. Re:Both options kind of suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound highly enthusiastic about replacing your biological body parts.

      Why wait for a catastrophe? Just go ahead and amputate away. Perfectly good arm with fully functional hand? Amputate!

    3. Re:Both options kind of suck by goarilla · · Score: 1

      The non-biological components are definitely more robust. You can just plug in new ones. Even do upgrades. The first thing I'd do after the amputation is dedicate a bunch of time to learning as much about prosthetics and 3D printing as I could. "Doctor heal thyself" would be a pretty good thing to dedicate the rest of my life to.

      Bullshit, your biological components are a lot more robust. The average llifespan is 80 years.
      Show me one mechanical machine (heart) which can do that without some offline maintenance.

    4. Re:Both options kind of suck by prowler1 · · Score: 1

      This unfortunately is a subject I became intimately familiar with about 2.5 years ago and yes a third option would have been nice :p

      Long story short, I found myself in emergency surgery with a surgeon telling me there was no way they could save my leg and that it had to be amputated. Not something you ever imagine being faced with. I woke up in intensive care with both my legs, after making sure they hadn't removed the wrong one. Turns out they decided to give it a go and see if they could save my leg anyway. (I found out later on they thought I would still lose my leg and was informed it was a miracle I didn't).

      For a long time, I really wished it had been amputated. The pain was extreme, my leg was just a useless lump of scared flesh which I couldn't use for a long time, I was stuck in a wheel chair for 9 months and it took 2 years before I was to the stage when I could walk with the aid of a walking stick. Mentally and physically it has not been a fun trip.

      I knew I was lucky but it was really re-enforced when I was a patient in a rehab hospital where there was another patient who did have their leg amputated as mine would have been. They were going through the exact same pain and problems as I was but minus a leg.

      As other people have already commented, if it doesn't work out, you can get it amputated later but if it is your first choice, you can't go back. Yes I am still in pain and yes I struggle but all said and done, I am glad the surgeons 'gave it a go' and I did keep what was left of my leg but I can also see why this is becoming an increasingly tough decision. Especially since I was informed that 5 years ago they would not have been able to carry out the surgery they performed which did save my leg.

  11. Battlefield surgeons of the future by Ichijo · · Score: 2

    Someday there will be little robots that swarm out after an explosion to quickly gather up all the people bits, identify which bits belong to which person, 3D print any missing or uselessly damaged parts, and glue them all back together, all within 5 minutes before the brain starts to suffer from hypoxia.

    Imagine getting blown to bits one day, then the next day you're right back on the front line.

    Maybe they could put a few of these into airliners also, made out of the same stuff as the black boxes.

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    1. Re:Battlefield surgeons of the future by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      That seems like a huge social expense, given how good humanity is at self replicating, with such a huge surplus population as we have. That swarm of robots could be doing so much other for so many, who hadn't managed to get themselves blown up. Maybe detecting and stopping the bombers, for instance.

    2. Re:Battlefield surgeons of the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someday will be replacing people bits with plug-and-play mechanical bits.

  12. hack the damn thing off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what I say

  13. Watching House taught me one thing... by MenThal · · Score: 1

    ... chop the damn useless thing off!

  14. Drone Assassins. by blueshift_1 · · Score: 0

    Imagine this on one of the quadcopters like the lilly cam or AirDog? It follow you around and aim for you.. erm.. at you. I, for one, welcome our Drone Assassin overlords.