Borgwatch: ITAP prosthetics

[andygates]

"Intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthesis" - ITAP - is doing the rounds of the news media right now as Kira Mason (wot was blowed up in the London bombings) and her boffins wave their her new arm and their new technique at the world.  In a nutshell, it's a good, strong, non-rejecting non-infecting metal-to-bone-through-skin graft.  Part of it is nifty coatings on the titanium rod that's inserted into the bone where it passes through skin; the other part is the cunning antler-model fusion section, where a basket-shaped piece allows flesh and bone to grow through the implant, making everything fused tight, slightly giving, and biologically calm. 

It ought to do away with harnesses and cuffs, none of which are really very good.  It's more sensitive, more precise, and able to handle heavier loads.  Combined with some of the nifty arm tech coming out of Dean Kamen's skunkworks (a genius and some DARPA funding: two great tastes that taste great together), things are looking up. 

Comments

[calum]

That looked really impressive on BBC breakfast this morning, but the presenters completely seemed to miss that the clever thing was how it was attached, not the arm on the end of it.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Aye - in fact the arm was pretty ordinary and she's getting an upgrade soon, though the increased facility that she had with it because of the implanted attachment made it more useful to her. A good mount makes an average arm into an impressive arm.

I wonder if the technique works for load-bearing bones too? Sockets are the bane of prosthetic legs, and I often hear tales of one-legged athletes pausing mid-event to empty the gore out of their cups.

Not to mention the body-piercing applications. Microdermals gone mad! :)

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

That is so much more awesome than the silly bint who wanted to implant a bluetooth camera in her prosthetic eye (not to mention the geeks falling over themselves to say it could be done without knowing how the damn things are made).

The attachment part can't be seen by the audience, silly boys. Why would anyone want to concentrate on that, no matter how innovative and cool it is?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

True nuff.

And true nuff.

Oh, and props to implat-prototype-lady, when asked how she coped with being a SurviVOR of 7/7 on the telly, by saying, "Oh, I'm just a happy sort of person, life goes on."