The "old" way of allowing movement of a prosthetic arm was to attach a motor for each motion and use muscles in your back or upper arm to control the motor. This required great concentration from the amputee. Doctors have discovered a way to allow more motions, at the same time, and with less thought on the part of the amputee. The procedure, reinnervation, requires the connecting of existing nerves to the another muscle. While cost is a factor and it won't work for every patient, since the process only requires surgery and medical devices that have already been approved, it does not have to go through an approval process. This is great news for the field of prosthetics.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Controlling Prosthetics With Your Brain
Posted by quizwedge at 11:54 PM
Labels: medicine, prosthetics, reinnervation
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1 comment:
I am very skeptical of this new theory, simply because it goes against the collected wisdom of generations and generations of Western experience. It is not that I doubt it may be true - it makes sense that pressure in the nasal passages could vent "stuff" into the sinuses. It is that I doubt it is relevant. If there is a path from the nasal passages to the sinuses (and there is) then the body is designed to deal with it. Blowing the nose (a very natural action) is unlikely to make things worse.
Of course, I am no doctor. It is just my observation that new "discoveries" of this nature are more fashion than science.
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