Better, Cheaper Prosthetics

[ysabetwordsmith]

This company is making 3D printed bionic arms for about 1/10 the conventional cost.  They are customized to each user, including skin tone.  I wonder if that will bring down the rejection rate (often 80% or more) for upper-limb prosthetics.  Most people just don't find the advantages worth the disadvantages.  Another problem is that few people can afford prosthetics for growing children, but kids who don't grow up using a prosthesis will naturally find other ways to accomplish tasks and then not want one later.

Comments

[heron61]

Wow, that's impressively awesome - it's entirely unsurprising that clever compassionate individuals can do far better than standard US healthcare

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Pretty much anything can do better than American health care, sometimes including nothing. Hence the 80% rejection rate.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I think I'd be more interested in a low-tech apocalypse-punk replacement limb, if I needed one. Think like what Furiosa had in Fury Road.

And for the unpopular question of the day:

If 80% of people prefer to not have a replacement arm, does that mean that we should be trying something other than prosthetics, instead of defaulting to prosthetics-as-standard?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Personally, I think I'd be more interested in a low-tech apocalypse-punk replacement limb, if I needed one. Think like what Furiosa had in Fury Road.<<

If you don't mind having the mechanics visible, you can often get higher functionality than if you try to make it look human.

>> And for the unpopular question of the day:

If 80% of people prefer to not have a replacement arm, does that mean that we should be trying something other than prosthetics, instead of defaulting to prosthetics-as-standard? <<

That would be my thought. I mean, it's great to push prosthetic science forward, and some people do love prosthetics. But there are so many flaws with it.

First, it needs to be free, so everyone can try it to see if they like it. Not many people can afford to risk $80,000 on something with only a 1 in 5 chance of success. 0_o

In particular, children need the chance to try different prosthetics, starting around toddler or preschool age. If they don't get that, they aren't going to want one later, because they haven't grown up learning to use it, they've learned other ways of doing things.

Second, amputees should be working in prosthetic science, so it's more informed by actual needs. Abled people are just guessing. That often leads to focusing on the wrong things to improve. Given how many people cite weight and discomfort as reasons to quit using prosthetics, those should be priorities, but the most advanced prosthetics are also the heaviest.

So yeah, I'd look at alternatives, and present them along with prosthetics as an option.

First, adaptive equipment. There are scads of useful gadgets for doing things with one hand. I think that's a great approach, and they're quite popular. The problem is, they're often expensive and hard to find. We need a much better development and distribution system. And stop thinking of these for disabled people only: who hasn't wished for an extra hand or an easier way of doing things?

Second, observe people with disabilities and note how they do things one-handed. These methods and skills can then be taught to those who have lost a limb or the use of it.

Ideally, this is another place where disabled people should be doing the work, instead of being treated strictly as service receivers. The experienced ones know a lot more about it than abled people do. I've seen some good references from occupational therapy, but those would be a lot more use if they were freely available than locked in an expensive book or therapist. Put all that stuff on websites and in free flyers.

I suspect that much of the problem comes from abled people not knowing enough about what disabled people really want and need, followed by not caring what they want or need. The products and services are designed to make abled people comfortable or wealthier, so they do a poor job of helping disabled people, who eventually get sick of fooling around and bail.

I have found that, for most challenges, I get the highest success by solving things myself. Books and tools are often useful. Other people are much less useful, as they rarely help for free, are almost never as smart or imaginative as I am, and usually have their own agenda that I don't fit in.

Re: Thoughts

[(Anonymous)]

>>If you don't mind having the mechanics visible, you can often get higher functionality than if you try to make it look human.<<

Plus more durable, likely cheaper, and no Uncanney Valley effect. And easier to fix or modify if I need to be a zombie-fighting road warrior.

>>...those would be a lot more use if they were freely available than locked in an expensive book or therapist.<<

If you know a decently nice PT or OT, they may be willing to talk shop about some things. (And I don't think a retiree would have a non-compete clause active...liability issues might be a thing though.)

A special ed teacher (or even a regular teacher with lots of experience) may have some ideas too, but then again they might be better at suggesting workarounds for mental variability than physical variability.

>>The products and services are designed to make abled people comfortable or wealthier,...<<

Repeating pattern across many power dynamics and scales.

>>Other people are much less useful, as they rarely help for free, are almost never as smart or imaginative as I am, and usually have their own agenda that I don't fit in.<<

Other people are useful for having different information databases or for having different skills.

But the relevent information still needs to be 'Googled' and transmitted in a format useful and comprehensible to the recipient. And not as spam popups...