Thought-Controlled Prosthesis Changing Lives of Amputees

 (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128093438.htm)

A new form of prosthetics use a type of signaling called oseointegration to more accurately recreate the lost limb. Normally, electrodes are placed on the skin and send messaged to the prosthetic telling it which of the preprogrammed motions it should execute. The electrodes have difficulty reading signals because they are constantly shifting on the skin and the person’s sweat distorts the signals. This is method is so unreliable and limited that it is only accepted by half of amputees. Oseointegration gets around this problem by attaching the electrodes directly onto muscles and nerves, close to the prosthesis. This gives the electrodes protection and more accurate readings do to their close proximity to what they’re sensing. Even better, the electrodes are able to send signals back to the brain, acting as muscle spindles. Osteointegration will be used in prosthetics starting this winter.

I find this article incredibly fascinating and exciting. Prosthetics are what got me interested in biomedical engineering in the first place – specifically integrating them with neural signals. I can’t wait to see where this new technique goes and I hope to see it in the news – for positive reasons – soon.  Thankfully, I don’t know anyone who will be directly affected by this, but it is still interesting.