The Given Limb Foundation

Bionic hand makes life easier for amputees. Sgt. Juan Arredondo, and Iraq war hero, was one of the first people in the world to receive the ilimb, a new bionic hand which allows him to throw a football, install household fixtures and grasp a mug with less forethought and more dexterity than traditional prostheses. Touch Bionics, a Scotland-based company, introduced the iLimb in July 2007. Motors in each finger allow them to move independently. (Source: The Stamford Times, Aug. 26, 2007)

New developments in prosthetic hands Last summer, the Scottish company Touch Bionics, released the i-LIMB hand - the first prosthetic hand that enabled the movement of individual fingers by using five small, battery-powered motors that are embedded in each finger. This summer sees the release of a new prosthetic hand, the Fluidhand. It uses lightweight miniature hydraulics to articulate the fingers. According to its developers, the Fluidhand is lighter, behaves more naturally, and has greater flexibility than artificial hands that use motorized fingers. (Source: The Jamaican News Bulletin)

DARPA's Better Bionic Arm: Our Most Limb-Like Prosthetic - In a first for prosthetics, a new mechanical arm gives its user the sense of touch. It's an ambitious deadline: By 2009, DARPA hopes to have a mechanical arm whose functionality is on par with a flesh-and-blood limb. A new arm developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is just as ambitious, allowing its user to actually feel an object in his grasp. (Source: Popular Mechanics: Science and Health)

Evidence-based Prosthetics is Focus of New Workshops Robert Gailey, a physical therapist and investigator at the Miami VA Medical Center and University of Miami, Gailey has been funded by VA to study the best ways to identify the functional deficits of amputees. He hopes to enroll 90 veterans, most with amputations resulting from diabetes-related vascular disease. (Source: The United States Department of Veteran Affairs)

Timeline 2007 This timeline chronicles some of the most landmark developments in prosthetic implants and prosthetic limb technology in 2007. (Source: Virtual Wordlets.net)
 

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