You may not realise until you lose a limb, how important the ability to feel touch is. Prosthetics can only give you a hand like structure.
For people who have lost a limb, prosthetics can only provide some functions.
- It has been unproven, until today, that a prosthetic limb can give the feeling of sensation back to a patient.
- The University of Utah in collaboration with several institutions used the prosthetic named Utah Slanted Electrode Array.
- The USEA is an interface between the prosthetic itself and the patient’s remaining sensory nerves.
- These nerves and the patient’s thoughts are then the main way to operate the device.
- Though groundbreaking, the device is imprecise and cannot give back the exact feeling of a hand, it is far far better than having no feeling.
- The device requires several electrode implantations into the amputated arm of the patient.
- It is a big procedure but the electrodes nothing compared to the nerve ending count in a human arm.
- Humans thrive and drive on feelings, it is only sensible that it is a groundbreaking tech. But can anything ever replace the real arm?
