The future of prosthetic legs that look and feel like actual limbs may be soon realized. The big problem with replicating a human limb is that there are so many things that the human arm can do. Many people take it for granted but the potential uses of a humans limb is almost unlimited. Trying to make sure a prosthetic limb can do all of these actions is hard. Its like building a machine that can do 100,000 things. This recent surge in necessity for prosthetic limbs has been caused by the war in Iraq. Thousands of U.S. soldiers have lost a limb. Many of these soldiers are young and still have a long life to live. Scientists are trying to provide them a means to live a normal life. These new prosthetic limbs are going to be fused to the bone and completely controlled by the brain.
The work talked about in this article about creating new and improved prosthetic limbs seems very promising and realistic. Being a person who spent 11 years with my mother-in-law before she passed seeing her struggle with the loss of her leg was devastating and painful, I see this technology as something that could be extremely useful and helpful. She tried for several years to find a leg that fit, was comfortable and that she could move around in easily. After 8 years she gave up and resorted to using a walker with her one good leg resulting in weight gain, arthritis, muscle tension and pain.
ReplyDeleteMy mother in law was in her sixties when she passed but spent many years of her life not being able to participate in family events such as skiing or chasing her grandbabies around the yard. It breaks my heart thinking about it. Then I think of the soldiers that put their lives on the line for our freedom and come home with less then what they left with. Many times not being able to work, to provide for their family and needing additional expensive care. These men and women deserve to have something that would allow them to regain their movement and their life back.
I hope to see this technology receive funding and continue to be worked on in the future so that every person regardless of their injury has a chance at living their life and being able to do the things that they love.
~Angela (A Bag of Tricks)
This seems so Terminator to me. Creating this kind of artificial limbs can then lead to creating full robots.Dont get me wrong, i think this is great! especially for our war vets who think they now have to live out thier life with missing limbs, limbs that they lost for our freedom. It just amazes me what technology has become.
ReplyDeleteThis seems so Terminator to me to kaite. when you Create artificial limbs it will lead to creating full robots. It is a cool thing tho. When people are able to get things back they might not have ever been able to get back before it awesome.
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