Upper and Lower Limb Robotic Prostheses
Pedro Encarnação, Albert M. Cook in Robotic Assistive Technologies, 2017
Actuators provide the forces needed to move the different parts of the robotic prosthesis (Figures 4.3a, c). They must be robust, generate forces that allow the user to be able to perform daily life tasks, and be efficient in their use of power. Depending on the joint that is being powered by an actuator, the size and type of motor vary. Actuation of individual fingers in a prosthetic hand is readily done by a series of small actuators at the base of a finger or in the palm of the hand (Figures 4.1 and 4.3c). Larger actuators are used in joints such as the knee, elbow, or wrist (Figure 4.3a). For the most part, direct current (DC) motors remain the standard source of actuation, as well reviewed with technical clarity by Weir (2004). Specifically with regard to prosthetic hands, models are now available that allow more than two dozen different grasp patterns through actuators for each finger, with either a manually movable thumb or powered thumb opposition (Belter et al. 2013).
Sensory Feedback using Electrical Stimulation of the Tactile Sense
Raymond V. Smith, John H. Leslie in Rehabilitation Engineering, 2018
Electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves to provide information about hand prosthesis function has been implemented using a variety of electrode interfaces. These have included schemes as simple as locating surface electrodes within the prosthesis shell so that they contact the skin overlying a trunk nerve in the amputee’s stump. 112 While such transcutaneous nerve stimulation has the important advantage of being noninvasive, it is disadvantageous because the close proximity of the motor and sensory components of the major nerves in the arm necessitates maximal distal placements of the electrodes along the stump to avoid excitation of the stump muscles. As a result, the locus of the evoked sensation may be difficult to control. Thus, surface electrodes for stimulation of trunk nerves is primarily applicable to below-elbow amputees. Other difficulties with surface stimulation of peripheral nerves include possible extraneous sensation evoked from the skin region directly below the stimulating electrode and electrical interference of the high amplitude pulses (needed for transcutaneous stimulation) with the sensing and processing of low level myoelectric control signals.
Social and material ecologies for hearing impairment
Lucy Yardley in Material discourses of health and illness, 2013
A disease in your leg is a state of ill-health in that limb which may inhibit the function of walking; cure of the disease by medical or surgical intervention may restore that function. The lessened mobility cannot be seen as illhealth, nor its restoration the return of health. Those alterations of function are the disabling and enabling of capacities. A prosthesis in the form of callipers may help to restore function, with the state of health in the limb unaffected. But we would not speak of ‘walking health’, and nor should we speak of ‘hearing health’. An observer not wise to the intervention may mistakenly think that the limb is restored to health if the callipers are out of sight and the capacity to walk on even ground looks fairly normal. So with a hearing aid, especially one that is small enough not to call attention to itself, and a context, such as one-to-one conversation in quiet conditions, where the person can function quite fluently. An observer might be tempted to think that the hearing system has been restored to a healthy condition, when no such restoration has occurred. Rather, the degree of impairment has been reduced, while the health of the auditory system may remain unchanged.
A novel sEMG data augmentation based on WGAN-GP
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2023
Fabrício Coelho, Milena F. Pinto, Aurélio G. Melo, Gabryel S. Ramos, André L. M. Marcato
The recognition of hand movements through sEMG signals is the primary key to most prosthetic hand control. Thus, sEMG signals are used to hand gesture recognition to actuate with upper limps prostheses in several works (Krasoulis et al. 2020; Calado et al. 2019; Shahzad et al. 2019). An important concept to get a successful classification is the availability of a database with a suitable generalization of all movements to be classified. Building a database capable of generating many movements can become a difficult task because the conception of these movements by the subjects can be exhausting due to the many repetitions of the actions. This fatigue contributes to the database’s contamination, generating data that is not experienced in reality (Anicet Zanini and Luna Colombini 2020).
Advances in additive manufacturing processes and their use for the fabrication of lower limb prosthetic devices
Published in Expert Review of Medical Devices, 2023
Shaurya Bhatt, Deepak Joshi, Pawan Kumar Rakesh, Anoop Kant Godiyal
Prosthetic devices are used to physically support a person with a disability, caused due to loss of a limb or a certain portion of limb or a body part due to disease or trauma. Prosthetic devices can replace the missing part in the body of a person and help to regain the working capabilities of the lost part. Prostheses can be of many types, such a foot prosthesis, hand prostheses, and many more. The part of the limb that is left after loss is known as residual limb. A prosthesis socket acts as inter-connection between the prosthesis and residual limb, and helps to transfer load and motion from the residual limb to the prosthesis. The naming of prostheses is carried out based on joint and limb involved. Four common nomenclatures of prostheses are Above Elbow (AE), Below Elbow (BE), Above Knee (AK), and Below Knee (BK). Prostheses can also be named based on the bone involved, like transradial prosthesis, transhumeral prosthesis, transfemoral prosthesis, and transtibial prosthesis, as were used in various studies [1–4]. It is estimated that 25.5 million people in the world need prosthetic/orthotic devices [5]. In India, 2.21% of total population is disabled, in which 20% has disability related to movement [6].
SwedeAmp—the Swedish Amputation and Prosthetics Registry: 8-year data on 5762 patients with lower limb amputation show sex differences in amputation level and in patient-reported outcome
Published in Acta Orthopaedica, 2020
Ilka Kamrad, Bengt Söderberg, Hedvig Örneholm, Kerstin Hagberg
In Sweden the use of a postoperative liner for residual limb compression is standard in the postoperative care after TTA (Johannesson et al. 2004). Liner compression was commonly started within 3 weeks after surgery. Regardless, median time from TTA to first fitting of prosthesis was 10 weeks, and a delay of a further 2 weeks was seen until prosthetic rehabilitation started. The cause for this delay cannot be identified by our data. However, the time to the first prosthesis in our material is clearly shorter than the mean of 145 days reported from the United States (Resnik and Borgia 2015). A positive trend could be noted in the registry with decreasing numbers of days to first TTA prosthesis, from md 79 days during the first years of registration (year 2011–2013) to md 56 days (year 2017–2018). With regard to the time from TTA to first fitting of individual prosthesis, the shortest time record (6 days) may be explained by the use of methods involving a laminated socket being produced directly on the residual limb, allowing the start of prosthetic use even before wound healing. However, until now, specific registration of methods involving a socket being directly fitted to the residual limb has not been included in the registry and therefore it cannot be excluded that this short time interval was due to misinput.
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