Advances in the Technology of Prosthetics

While it may be argued that advancing technology has loosed some terrible consequences on humankind, there are some applications which have served to advance the interests and capacities of human beings. For those who have suffered the loss of a limb (arm or leg) or extremity (hand or foot), the most helpful technological advances in recent years have been in the field of prosthetics.

Peg-legs and hooks once were the type of simple, immobile devices used to 'replace' lost limbs and extremities. Today, science has advanced the technology of prosthetics to neural and muscular-directed robotics which can actually perform many of the functions of the parts they are used to replace.

The idea or replacing removed or destroyed limbs and extremities is not a new one. The history is quite fascinating and reflects, as many things do, the level of technological sophistication of the times.

As far back as 4000BC, the ancient Egyptians had begun making prosthetic limbs to replace ones lost by soldiers in battle out of fiber. By the 5^th. Century AD, artificial limbs were being fashioned out of leather and wood.

The 16^th. Century saw the development of prosthetic hands and legs with movable joints and, out of tragic necessity, major advances in the technology of prosthetic devices were accelerated by the Second World War. Yet, after six thousand years, the available prostheses were relatively limited in functionality, generally uncomfortable to wear and always quite obvious to even the casual observer.

The 21^st. Century brought technological innovation, micro-circuitry and a better understanding of the connections between muscles, nerves and movement to the rapid development of more completely useful (and discrete) prosthetic devices.

Modern artificial limbs, powered by small batteries, provide the energy for what are called "myoelectric" prostheses which use electrical impulses detected by small electrodes placed on the skin over the remaining arm muscles. These newer devices are not simply wood or metal contraptions taking up the space that was once occupied by a living and functioning part of a person.

They are actually mechanical replacements capable to being manipulated by the persons own muscular movements and neural impulses and are often flexible enough, with a lot of determined practice, to do many of the things the natural body part was able to do. They move more smoothly and with less muscular effort that did their predecessors, are more fully functional and less visually conspicuous.

Sometimes, technology does truly wonderful things. For amputees and their loved ones, this is clearly one of them.