The development of body-powered prosthetic hands has stagnated over the past 20 years, concludes a recent study from the Netherlands. Researchers at TU Delft and the University of Groningen conducted a test comparing the results of contemporary body-powered prosthetic hands to earlier measurements from 1987 — and found that today's prosthetic hands perform equally or even less well than those from the past. In fact, researchers found that a prosthetic hand developed in 1945 performed better in the test than the newer prosthetic hands. What's going on here?
The press release indicates that the study involved "a number of contemporary body-powered prosthetic hands," but it doesn't say specifically which ones. As such, it's likely that they were not able to test all of the prosthetic hands available on the market today — and that they may have overlooked some of the better ones.
On the other hand, the state of prosthetic hand and arm technology may indeed be lagging behind that of its lower-body counterparts, prosthetic legs . Certainly, DARPA is one of the parties who should be concerned about this: Upper-limb amputations account for the majority (68.6 percent) of all trauma-related amputations, according to the National Limb Loss Information Center . Since 2006, DARPA has focused on expanding prosthetic hand and arm options for wounded warriors as part of its Revolutionizing Prosthetics program. One project that was born from this initiative is the "Luke" robotic arm (named after Luke Skywalker). More milestones in this program are detailed here.
And take a look at this artificial finger technology , which won an honorable mention in last year's Create the Future Design Contest .
But back to the issue at hand — the state of today's prosthetic hand technology, that is. As TU Delft researcher Gerwin Smit puts it, "The study offers a possible explanation why over half of all people with a body-powered prosthetic hand do not use it or even wear it." The researchers are working on making improvements to body-powered prosthetic hands; the ultimate aim is to develop a lightweight prosthetic hand with lower operating force and higher grip strength. With their efforts, and the continued efforts of scientists working on next-generation prosthetics for the future, the state of the art will undoubtedly rise over the next 20 years, rather than stagnate.
