DailyDirt: Prosthetics To Be Proud Of

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A few years ago, Oscar Pistorius was not allowed to participate in the Olympics because, as a double amputee, his prosthetic legs might have given him an advantage over athletes who weren't using prosthetic legs. Prosthetic technology doesn't stand still, so it's understandable that the Olympic committee didn't want to allow devices that could give future athletes extremely unfair mechanical advantages. Here are just a few interesting prosthetic developments that might change the perception of "disabled" persons.

• Prosthetic limbs don't have to look like medical devices or dead body parts. Artificial legs can be made with a variety of different designs, and the manufacturer of these bespoke legs occasionally requests help from volunteers who can "donate" their legs as a scanned template for prosthetic designs. [url]
• Last May, Claire Lomas finished a marathon in a $70,000 bionic suit -- after being paralyzed from the chest down in 2007. She walked about 2 miles per day, so it took her about two weeks to complete the London Marathon. [url]
• MIT researchers have created a glucose fuel cell that could be used to power brain implants or other implantable electronics that could control prosthetic devices. This device could get all the sugar it needs from cerebrospinal fluid, so it wouldn't need batteries (although external prosthetics would still need to be powered separately). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: claire lomas, fuel cell, london marathon, mit, olympics, oscar pistorius, prosthetics