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Bionic hand offers the gift of touch
Mr Dennis Aabo Sorensen using LifeHand 2. Scientist hope the device will one day revolutionise the lives of amputees.
LONDON - Mr Dennis Aabo Sorensen lost his left hand when a fireworks rocket he was holding exploded during New Year's Eve celebrations 10 years ago, and he never expected to feel anything with the stump again.
But for a while last year he regained his sense of touch after being attached to a "feeling" bionic hand that allowed him to grasp and identify objects even when blindfolded.
The prototype device, which was wired to nerves in the 36-year-old Dane's left arm, blurs the boundary between body and machine, and scientists hope it could one day revolutionise the lives of many amputees.
There is still work to be done in miniaturising components and tidying away trailing cables that mean the robotic hand has so far been used only in the lab, but Mr Sorensen said the European research team behind the project had got the basics right.
"It was a great experience. It's amazing to feel something you haven't been able to feel for so many years," he said.
"It was pretty close to having the same feeling as in my normal hand."
Details of his month-long use of the bionic hand, including results from a week of concentrated daily tests, were reported by researchers from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Denmark in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.
Mr Alastair Ritchie, a bioengineering expert at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the research, said the device was a logical next step but more clinical trials were needed to confirm the system's viability.
"It's very exciting preliminary data but it's a one-case study and we now need to see more cases," he said.
Despite notable advances with prosthetic limbs, current artificial hands fall down when it comes to providing sensory feedback - a key element in human dexterity.
In his everyday life, Mr Sorensen uses a commercial prosthetic hand that can detect muscle movement in his stump to open and close the hand, but provides no sense of touch and requires him to watch constantly to prevent objects being crushed.
The new LifeHand 2 prosthesis is far more sophisticated in combining intra-nerve wiring, robotics and computer science to create life-like feeling.
"Our final goal is to have this in clinical practice in five, six or seven years' time, but the next step is to show in two to three years that can work long term not just in one patient but in several patients," said Mr Silvestro Micera, an engineer at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and the Cuola Superiore Sant' Anna in Pisa.
REUTERS
Mr Dennis Aabo Sorensen using LifeHand 2. Scientist hope the device will one day revolutionise the lives of amputees.
LONDON - Mr Dennis Aabo Sorensen lost his left hand when a fireworks rocket he was holding exploded during New Year's Eve celebrations 10 years ago, and he never expected to feel anything with the stump again.
But for a while last year he regained his sense of touch after being attached to a "feeling" bionic hand that allowed him to grasp and identify objects even when blindfolded.
The prototype device, which was wired to nerves in the 36-year-old Dane's left arm, blurs the boundary between body and machine, and scientists hope it could one day revolutionise the lives of many amputees.
There is still work to be done in miniaturising components and tidying away trailing cables that mean the robotic hand has so far been used only in the lab, but Mr Sorensen said the European research team behind the project had got the basics right.
"It was a great experience. It's amazing to feel something you haven't been able to feel for so many years," he said.
"It was pretty close to having the same feeling as in my normal hand."
Details of his month-long use of the bionic hand, including results from a week of concentrated daily tests, were reported by researchers from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Denmark in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.
Mr Alastair Ritchie, a bioengineering expert at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the research, said the device was a logical next step but more clinical trials were needed to confirm the system's viability.
"It's very exciting preliminary data but it's a one-case study and we now need to see more cases," he said.
Despite notable advances with prosthetic limbs, current artificial hands fall down when it comes to providing sensory feedback - a key element in human dexterity.
In his everyday life, Mr Sorensen uses a commercial prosthetic hand that can detect muscle movement in his stump to open and close the hand, but provides no sense of touch and requires him to watch constantly to prevent objects being crushed.
The new LifeHand 2 prosthesis is far more sophisticated in combining intra-nerve wiring, robotics and computer science to create life-like feeling.
"Our final goal is to have this in clinical practice in five, six or seven years' time, but the next step is to show in two to three years that can work long term not just in one patient but in several patients," said Mr Silvestro Micera, an engineer at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and the Cuola Superiore Sant' Anna in Pisa.
REUTERS
