Feeling Hands With Electricity
Three years ago Igor Spetic was working at his manufacturing job when his life changed forever.
“When I looked down and saw red everywhere, I knew something had happened,” said Spetic.
A huge metal hammer had crushed Igor’s right hand.
“Thirty minutes later, I was in surgery, and two hours after that, I was without a hand,” said Spetic.
Since his accident, Spetic has had to learn how to navigate the world left-handed, which has not always been easy. “Learning to do stuff left-handed has been challenging,” he said.
Now, Spetic is helping biomedical engineers at Case Western University in Cleveland test a newly-developed prosthetic hand that allows its users to feel physical sensations.
“The idea with sensation is it’s sort of our way of interacting with the world. It’s a very personal thing,” said Dustin Tyler, a biomedical engineer at Case Western.
In the new prosthetic, electrodes are placed on nerves inside the arm that used to go to the hand. When they are activated, pulses travel to the brain. “The subject can feel 20 different isolated spots,” Tyler explained.
The researchers have performed tests with Spetic where he is blindfolded and is wearing earphones. In these tests, he is able to pick up blocks on a board and averages about eight in two minutes.
As the researchers place the electrodes on to Spetic’s prosthetic, “It’s like ‘Oh, I can feel each finger. I can feel the back of my hand. I can feel my palm. I can feel the bottom of my hand,’” Spetic said.
It’s a breakthrough that could change the way amputees live.
Spetic said, “It was a little overwhelming at first, emotional, because I didn’t feel anything for a year and a half.”
Spetic is one of two people who have been testing the new hand for about 19 months. Tyler said that the research team wants to make the device more portable for at-home use. He envisions a prototype where the sensors are housed inside the hand and communicate wirelessly to a device in the chest.
Get Inside The Science:
Scientists Develop an Artificial Hand That Can Feel
Restoring Natural Human Sensation in Amputees
Dustin Tyler , Case Western Reserve University
