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First Woman to Have Bionic Arm

Posted Sep 14, 2006 at 09:29PM by Ian C. Listed in: Biomedical Technology, Medical Devices, Self Well-being Tags: Claudia Mitchel
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Fullmetal


Claudia Mitchel has earned the distinction of being the first woman to ever have a "Bionic arm". "Bionic" in the sense that she can control parts of the device with just her thoughts. Well, sort of.

The device was designed by physicians and engineers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and works by detecting the movements of a certain chest muscle. The chest muscle has been rewired so that the stumps of the nerves that once went to her missing limb, now connect to that chest muscle. A lot of anatomical alchemy is involved but if all goes well you're left with chest muscles that twitch in different places in response to such thoughts as "bend the wrist back," "move the thumb" and "clench the fingers."

Last summer surgeons took the first steps for that upgrade by rewiring the skin above her left breast so that when the area is stimulated by impulses from the bionic arm, the skin sends a message to the brain that feels like a "hand". She got a patch of skin about the width of a baseball that, when stroked, warmed or pricked, feels like a hand rather than part of the chest.

Someday she hopes to upgrade her bionic arm to a version that will also allow her to "feel" with the artificial hand. When technology improves eventually they will have the means to have the electrodes in the prosthetic's fingertips to send touch signals up the arm to the chest skin, which will send the impulses to the brain, where they will be perceived as sensation.

[Via Washington Post] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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   by Phoenix (Unregistered) - 2006-09-15
 » OK
OMG ITS AUTOMAIL!

   by Ominatorx - 2006-09-15
 » jamie sommers
I thought Jamie Sommers was the first bionic woman.



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