Wrist positioning is just one of many improvements that make the Michelango Hand feel more natural to amputees.

On January 12 Matt Razink received a prosthetic hand equipped with an electric opposable thumb. The Michelangelo Hand has given Razink so much added control that he no longer needs to change attachments according to the task. The new hand does it all.

The Wisconsin resident had lost part of his arm in a rock-crushing machine six years ago. He traveled to Advanced Arm Dynamics in Maple Grove, MN to try the new hand on for size. Advanced Arm Dynamics works closely with Otto Bock, makers of advanced bionic hands that are guided by the electrical activity of nerves and muscles in the forearm. Rezink has only had the Hand for a short time, but already it has made a world of difference. “It’s more natural to me,” he told CNN. “It’s like it used to be, before I lost my arm.” In the days and weeks to come, his control over the hand will only improve as he continues to train with it.

Along with the electric opposable thumb, the battery-powered Michelangelo Hand features a neutral mode for natural hand positioning, and a flexible wrist that can be moved up and down and turned inward and outward. Advanced software and improved electrical signal processing have also increased responsiveness and predictability, making movements that much more instinctive. A computer program is used to customize settings to each patient for maximum control. Movements are controlled by two drivers that control the fingers and the thumb separately. The fingertips are made with both hard and soft material that closely mimics the structure of real fingertips for more natural gripping. The PVC skin also looks impressively real, and it comes in several color variations for a more natural appearance.

In the following video from Advanced Arm Dynamics, retired army sergeant Ethan Payton demonstrates the Michelangelo Hand. I think you’ll agree that the level of control is pretty remarkable. The Hand is sure to be a game changer for the upper prosthetics field.

Ten US soldiers who’d lost their hands fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have received Michelangelo Hands, but Rezink is the first civilian to do so. The added control doesn’t come cheap. A Hand costs about $100,000 and some insurance companies won’t cover it. According to Kare11 in Minneapolis, Rezink is currently negotiating with his insurance company to help cover the cost.

The vast majority of amputees suffer lower limb loss. In 2005, 623 Americans suffered amputation of a lower limb while only 41 lost an upper limb. Advanced Arm Dynamics argues that the huge disparity can turn many general prosthetists from investing in the training and specialized equipment required to treat upper limb amputees.

When Rezink lost his hand his biggest concern was not being able to return to work, to provide for his family. Hopefully the Michelangelo Hand offers a way back to life “like it used to be” for Rezink and others waiting for a hand that’s closer to the one they lost.

[image credits: CNN and Otto Bock via chemitec]
[video credits: Advanced Arm Dynamics via YouTube and CNN]
image 1: Michelangelo
image 2: Michelangelo
video 1: Michelangelo
video 2: Rezink

The new Deus Ex: Human Revolution game will help us all learn to love cybernetics.

Over a decade ago, the video game Deus Ex was remarkable for its blending of numerous game genres, emphasis on player choice, and depth of storyline, which earned it the title of “Best PC Game of All Time” by the recently defunct PC Zone magazine. Now, a much anticipated prequel looks to rival its predecessor’s many awards. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is set in the year 2027 at a time when mechanical augmentation of the human body is common and the player must make critical decisions to progress through the rich story as enemies respond to even subtle player decisions. Set to release on 8/23/2011, the third game of the Deus Ex line must compete with many other groundbreaking game 2011 releases in order to hit #1 on everyone’s annual Top 10 lists. So, its developer Square Enix raised the bar on marketing the game as well. It created a faux technology company, Sarif Industries, and produced a marketing video (notice that it doesn’t even mention the game). Furthermore, an engrossing and interactive website has been created, which is profiled below.

First, check out the marketing video to get just a taste of not only the game but what may be in store for humankind:

Clearly, Square Enix could have capitalized on the original to market the game, but the video game industry has changed a lot in the last ten years. Though the annual revenue of computer and video games is now over $10 billion worldwide, this is significantly lower than projections that were made earlier in the decade when 10% annual sales growth was conservative. The economic downturn, competition for entertainment from sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the rise of free, mobile, online, social, and handheld games are just some of the factors that have made the industry a tough place to turn a profit. At the same time, gaming consoles have not only become more powerful, but new technologies like the Wii’s motion control system and the controller-free Kinect for the Xbox 360 have revolutionized not only the games but who is gaming.

The new Deus Ex gameplay will come a long way from the 2000 original (top) with all its theatrical glory (bottom).

To grab gamers’ attention in this market, Square Enix is wisely capitalizing on the viral nature of the web to tantalize players about Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And it seems to be working. Over at IGN, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is on the top 10 Most Anticipated games of 2011 for both PC and Xbox.

But more than just a cool advertising campaign for an awesome looking game, the Sarif Industries website is a forward-oriented summation of many of the projects that have been discussed on Singularity Hub over the past few years. In fact, many of the proposed products on the website have real-life technologies that exist today, albeit in their cruder 2011 forms.

Here are four of the cool augmentation products of the future and the efforts in recent years toward making us all cyborgs:

The Eye-See Vision Enhancement Package vs. Implantable Telescope Technology

While heads-up displays are on every technologist’s wishlist for cybernetic eyeballs, the proposed Eye-See device looks like what we would expect from a future synthetic eye: something that fits right into the eye socket and wires directly into the optic nerve. Compare this to the Implantable Telescope Technology from CentraSight that was profiled last year on the Hub. Although the telescope implant enhances central vision at the expense of peripheral vision, it enables those who suffer end-stage age-related macular degeneration to be able to see again. It is only a matter of time before the technology improves, allowing the elderly to regain the ability to read. The fact that the brain continues to be pliable to new vision technology really opens up the potential of something like the fictitious Eye-See technology to be available sooner than later.

Dermal Plated Cybernetic Hand Prosthesis vs. BeBionic Artificial Hand

The resilient, nanotube-weaved design of the hypothetical hand prosthetic is exactly what any person considering cybernetics would love to have someday. Toward that end, the BeBionic hand from RSLSteeper is a step in the right direction as is the i-Limb hand from TouchBionics and the Smart Hand project. As the prosthetic hand space gets crowded with an increasing number of innovations, something akin to the hand prosthesis dreamed up by Square Enix is quite promising.

Computer-Assisted Social Interaction Enhancer (CASIE) vs. Braingate Neural Interface

Lost for words at a party? Serif Industries offers a solution: CASIE is a cranial implant that gauges a persons’ body language than enhances your response while projecting information on your cybernetic eyeball (above). While some would love this device to be able to persuade others, people who have experienced trauma and are literally trapped in their bodies often have to resort to very subtle cues to be able to communicate. But technology like the Braingate Neural Interface from Cyberkinetics is making strides at connecting mental thoughts into actions on a computer screen. Extend this kind of technology on a long enough timeline and implants that readily interface with the brain for enhancements to various functionalities will most certainly become reality.

Cybernetic Arm Prosthesis vs. the Modular Prosthetic Limb System

In the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution game, having a cybernetic arm prosthesis seems very appealing. The Square Enix developers imagined a prosthetic using advanced polymers including myomers (electro-stimulated cables) working in concert with micromotors. While not nearly as sleek looking, efforts toward an arm prosthesis are very bright as the DARPA-funded Module Prosthetic Limb system is now in clinical trials. This technology underscores that we are literally on the verge of a massive revolution in prosthetic devices, ushering in Cybernetic Society 1.0.

As you can see from this profile of what the Deus Ex developers envision will be available 16 years from now, augmentation technology is rapidly advancing on a number of fronts. Games like the Deus Ex series allow us to project technological advancement into the future, not only to stimulate out ingenuity and imagination, but to help us reason through the potential consequences of seemingly innocent advances. That we are so close to modifying our bodies with artificial prosthetics is both exciting and frightening, leaving no doubt that the singularity is indeed on its way.

For a virtual playground of what our future holds, play around on the Sarif Industries website, check out the theatrical and gameplay trailers at the Deus Ex: Human Revolution website (I prefer the one over at Steam, perhaps because it lacks the NSFW URL), and pick up the game in August. It looks to hold that magical combination of story, plot, immersion, action, and atmosphere that make for a Game of the Year.

[MEDIA: BeBionic, BrainGate, CentraSight, MPL, YouTube]

[SOURCES: ESRB, IGN, Sarif Industries, Square Enix]

Part biology. Part artificial. All cat.

I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. A veterinarian in Jersey has managed to successfully graft two prosthetic limbs onto a cat that lost both its back paws in a combine thresher. Named Oscar, the 2 year old cat was walking freely only a few hours after receiving its new limbs! The metal pins that attach to the prostheses were surgically embedded in the cat’s residual legs and were specially designed to allow both skin and bone to grow into them. This should prevent infection and long term complications associated with exposed metal pins in living tissues. We have two amazing videos for you, both from the BBC. The first shows Oscar’s first steps after receiving his new limbs, and the second showing him weeks later enjoying a more advanced version of the devices in his home. You’ve got to see this.

Noel Fitzpatrick, the veterinarian who performed Oscar’s surgery, had previous success in attaching prostheses to animals. In fact, he’s the star of a new upcoming BBC pilot for a series called “The Bionic Vet.” The prosthetic limbs were developed in association with researchers at the University College London and have implications for human-used devices. The metal pins embedded in Oscar’s legs are called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) and are specially shaped (like umbrellas) to allow tissue to grow onto and into them. This shields them against infection. Similar techniques are already under testing for humans and may allow for sturdier and safer human prostheses. For now, it’s unlikely that Oscar’s style of Itaps will be used for other cats as they are expensive: £2000 (~$3000) without the cost of surgery). That means that, for a while, Oscar is likely to be one of kind. Lucky cat.

[image credit: Reuters]
[video credit: BBC News]
[source: BBC News, Reuters]

Dean Kamen shares moving stories about his development of prosthetic arms for veterans.

Thousands lose their arms every year to accidents, disease, and war. For centuries the best technology they were offered was a hook on a stick. Now Dean Kamen wants to give them much, much more. In his impassioned speech from  TEDMED he shows us the amazing story of people who have lost part of themselves but who now have hope on the horizon. You have to see this video! Kamen’s research firm, Deka, has been working tirelessly to develop a prosthetic arm for DARPA, affectionately dubbed the Luke Arm after the Star Wars character. The progress he and his team have made – clinical trials and five active participants starting just 15 months after inception – is incredible. Yet it is the amputees, the ultimate recipients of his work, that have grabbed Kamen’s admiration and dedication. Listen to him explain why in the video below.

There’s no doubt that Dean Kamen is a rock star of technology. He has 440+ patents, he invented the Segway, and is the founder of FIRST. Still, I was surprised to hear about the confidence DARPA had in his abilities. They wanted a hand that could pick up a grape or raisin (3:23 in the video) that weighed less than 9 lbs, and was completely self contained. And they wanted in less than 2 years (5:40)! Kamen gave them a working prototype in one. You can see the Luke Arm in action starting at 8:15, with the grape test at 9:05. The focus of the talk, however, were the experiences Kamen shared with veterans at Walter Reed (10:00) and other locations, including a quadruple amputee (13:38), and a crowd of 3500 soldiers and family members (15:20).

To be honest, I tend to avoid impassioned speeches. I’m more of a cold hard facts kind of guy. I must admit though, that Kamen’s plea for funding veterans’ prostheses hit home. We should be spending more money and devoting more research to getting upper body artificial arms out of the dark ages. However, I would extend Kamen’s plea to include all amputees everywhere. Prosthetic projects should begin with veterans (that’s where the money and passion is) but they need to extend to everyone who has lost a limb. Lower body prosthetics have already made huge leaps in improvement in the last decade. Artificial arms need to undergo a similar revolution. The Deka Luke Arm is a good contender to make it happen, but there are other artificial arms with different (perhaps even better) approaches. With adequate funding each of these projects could help us find the next generation of arms and hands that help amputees recover the capabilities they have lost. I agree with Kamen’s conclusion that we should continue such research until non-amputees are jealous of the artificial limbs we can provide. Heh…now that I think about it, why stop there?

[screen capture and video credit: TEDMED]
[source: TEDMED, Deka]

iWalk's PowerFoot One is the world's first actively powered foot and ankle prosthetic.

Someday soon, amputees will have more powerful limbs than those with their natural bodies. iWalk, a prosthetics company formed in 2006, is gearing up to provide the world’s first actively powered foot and ankle this year. Called the PowerFoot One, the prosthetic limb uses springs and a half pound lithium ion battery to provide human-like power. It gives the same push off the ground as a human foot, and can adjust to slopes, walking up and down steps, or hanging casually when you lounge in a chair. The PowerFoot One can even be adjusted using a Bluetooth enabled phone and (according to an interview in Forbes) will soon have an associated iPhone App. Along with lower limb prosthetics from other companies, the PowerFoot One is set to give amputees an ease of movement that’s nearly natural. Give iWalk enough time, and they’re likely to make it better than human.

PowerFoot One is advanced in its sensing as well as its motion. Three on board processors and 12 sensors allow the limb to make around 500 adjustments each second. These measurements are combined with a comprehensive library of known patterns of human foot movements. In effect, the PowerFoot One knows how you’re going to move before you have time to think about it. It’s not quite the artificial intelligence we’ve seen in other lower limb devices, but unlike the Proprio Foot from Ossur, the PowerFoot One is providing enough force to really augment movement, not just adjusting its position to match your gait. It’s very impressive.

The Department of Defense seems to agree. They’re interested in the PowerFoot One as a possible prosthetic for injured soldiers. In fact, a good portion of iWalk’s $10+ million startup capital was funded by the Veteran Administration and the US Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC).

But if there is one driving force behind PowerFoot One it’s the limb’s developer and first user, Prof. Hugh Herr of MIT. He’s the head of the University’s Biomechatronics group and a double leg amputee himself. His work has been incorporated into devices for prosthetic’s leader Ossur, and he was one of the founders of iWalk. Herr’s story is very remarkable for its bravery and determination, but it’s his vision for the future that is really impressive. According to Forbes, Herr envisions the upcoming century as one that blurs the boundaries between man and machine. The prostheses for amputees today will become the universally sought after bionic limbs of tomorrow.

Before that happens, however, there’s a small matter of money. The PowerFoot One will cost users an unspecified amount in the low five figures. Similarly enabled lower limb devices we’ve seen before have similar expenses. Upper body bionic prosthetics, which continue to trail lower limb devices, are still experimental and can cost many tens of thousands of dollars. Veterans in the US could see great financial support from the VA for these limbs but most amputees simply won’t have the budget for them. Give that time, though. As with all forms of advancing technology, bionic limbs should experience falling costs even as technology improves. Devices like the PowerFoot One may be too expensive for many right now, but its successors will hopefully become universal options for those who have lost a foot. And one day for those who still have their foot but want to improve it.

Often when discussing medical technology, Singularity Hub is asked about specific means for acquisition or participation in clinical trials. If you are an amputee interested in trying PowerFoot One or would like more detailed information, please contact iWalk directly at their website.

[image credit: iWalk]

I spent last week in San Diego for TEDMED, the medical version of the TED conference. It was an incredible experience for me, almost overwhelming at times with the quality and number of amazing people there. Singularity Hub wrote a preview of the event a few weeks ago.

I spent last week in San Diego for TEDMED, the medical version of the TED conference. It was an incredible experience for me, almost overwhelming at times with the quality and number of amazing people there.

Here are my top 10 takeaways:

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1. Disability to Super-Ability – Mullins, Kamen, Angle

Three incredible stories, told back to back, left the audience in tears and on the edge of their seats.

Prosthetically augmented athlete Aimee Mullins gave a moving account of how being “disabled” has affected her life in a positive way. She reframed our thinking: “Adversity isn’t an obstacle to get around, it’s part of our life. We adapt.”

Dean Kamen spoke of his passion to build prosthetics for war veterans that are ultimately better than real limbs, imparting super-ability to the wearers.

iRobot co-founder Colin Angle continued the story of augmented reality by demonstrating how robots will become caregivers for elders like his mother. “In 2030, every person under 65 will be responsible for the care of a person over 65,” Colin said. “Can robots help with this?”

Saving lives, restoring functional living: these are inspiring applications of robotics and engineering. I highly recommend watching these three TEDMED talks when they are released.

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2. Best iPhone Apps for Health – David Pogue

On a lighter note, New York Times columnist David Pogue gave his run-down of the top health-related iPhone apps. Included on his list:

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• UHear hearing loss test
• SoundAmp hearing aid through your earbuds
• PeriodTracker menstrual cycle tracker for women (and their partners)
• Lose it! weight loss aid
• Eyeglasses magnifying glass
• Anatomy Lab virtual human dissection
• Epocrates drug reference
• Airstrip OB remote fetal/maternal heart monitor
• Allscripts Remote EHR
• Lifescan glucose monitor

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David’s favorite non-health apps?

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• Twittaround – shows you who is Twittering around you in real time
• Nearesttube – augmented reality shows underground subways in the UK
• Ocarina – your iPhone becomes an instrument

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3. Putting Geo-Medicine in your EMR – Bill Davenhall

Here’s a simple idea that could change the way you manage your health.

Bill Davenhall of ESRI showed annotated maps tracking his place history (everywhere he has lived in his life) and the prevalence of various toxic chemicals. The correlation was striking, and he discovered that the level of toxicity he was exposed to in his life may have been a factor in his recent heart attack. Had he known about this geography-based risk, he might have taken better care of his health.

Bill advocates for a kind of geospatial medicine in which you and your doctor have access to your place history directly in your electronic medical record. I’d like to add this new dimension to my own Quantified Self tracking.

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4. Two Remarkable Women – Kris Carr and Donna Karan

I got to have dinner one night with filmmaker Kris Carr and designer Donna Karan.

Kris is a cancer survivor who runs Crazy Sexy Life, an incredible community and resource to inspire anyone struggling with disease. A self-described “wellness warrior”, she asks the question, “Why, when we are challenged to survive, do we give ourselves permission to truly live?”

Donna Karan took the stage the next day and asked, “How do you find the calm in the chaos and treat the whole patient?” This question is the inspiration for her Urban Zen Foundation, which focuses on wellness, empowering children, and preserving cultures in New York City. There is strong undertone of peace in Urban Zen. I think this model could have a powerful impact if it were replicated across the country and around the world.

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5. Two Remarkable Men – Jesse Dylan and Aaron Rowe

These two guys are among the most helpful, genuine people I’ve ever met.

Jesse Dylan is the creative genius behind such projects as the Obama “Yes We Can” video with Will.I.Am. He is also the founder of Lybba, a non-profit dedicated to bringing patients, doctors, hospitals, and researchers together in a collaborative, comprehensive conversation on the world’s medical knowledge. He started Lybba after his family’s experience with Chron’s disease, and wants to empower patients with the resources they need to make better health decisions. Hooray!

Aaron Rowe is a biochemistry PhD student and writer for Wired Science. He has an insightful stream of tweets @soychemist, and if I could bottle half of his helpfulness, I’d be a happy camper. Watch for great things to come from Aaron. His thoughts on the TEDMED conference can be found here.

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6. Emotional Learning Curriculum for Kids – Goldie Hawn

As a mother of two daughters, I am very grateful for Goldie Hawn’s foundation and the message she delivered from the TEDMED stage.

“We need to rethink our whole approach to classroom education, integrating neuroscience with the latest social and emotional learning techniques. A peaceful, happy child is the first step toward a peaceful world.”

Social/emotional learning is such an important, often neglected area of human development. This approach should be in the hands and minds of every teacher, every parent, and every legislator, to learn ourselves and to share with our children.

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7. What do People Eat? – Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio

Documentary photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio have published a series of provocative books to make us rethink our perceptions of the world. They tackle food consumption, intelligent robots, eating insects, material consumption, and how women live.

Their newest book, due for release next August, is called What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets. They interviewed 80 people from around the world and gathered together all the food each one eats in a single day. After the photo shoot, they meticulously weighed each item and calculated total caloric content for each person’s day. From the 1300 calorie diet of a caloric restriction/life extension enthusiast to the 6600 calorie diet of a recovering meth addict, the spectrum is broad and fascinating.

I love the visual impact of these books, their global message, and the discussions they inspire among people of all ages and backgrounds.

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8. Building Organs with an Ink-Jet Printer – Anthony Atala

Yes, this is actually being done in the lab of Anthony Atala today. He is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina. One of the projects they are working on is building functional, beating heart valves, which they exercise in a bioreactor to help precondition them for implantation.

Anthony showed a video of the regular ink-jet printer they hijacked, using cells to print a heart valve that actually started beating! This was one of the coolest TEDMED demos, for sure.

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9. Visualizing Depression – Alexander Tsiaras

Futuristic medical visualizations from XVIVO and Alexander Tsiaras’ thevisualMD were peppered throughout the conference. One of the most amazing was this one, showing how depression actually causes structural changes in the brain.

From thevisualMD website, “Regions of the brain that may be affected by depression include the ventricles, corpus callosum, hippocampus, and all parts of the limbic system- which is involved with emotion formation as well as processing, learning, and memory.”

Alexander said these visualizations are helping people understand the changes and processes that are happening in their bodies, which results in more patient compliance and hopefully better health.

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10. The Art of the Spoken Word – Sekou Andrews

By far my favorite performance at TEDMED was the opening spoken word piece by the incomparable Sekou Andrews. He elegantly threaded themes from each speaker’s topic into a passionate, soul-bursting anthem engaging the audience to “be well and do good.”

It’s hard to capture in words how electrifying Sekou was, especially from my vantage point in the first row, but I certainly hope I get to see him perform again.

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So these are my top 10 takeaways. Honorable mentions go to HopeLab for the games they are developing to help kids understand and improve their health, and to The Fun Theory for their approach to making behavior change fun.

Deka’s next generation prosthetic arm, called the Luke Arm (named in homage to the prosthetic arm used by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) has overcome many of the signficant problems with the outdated prosthetic arms that are currently available. About the state of current prosthetic arms:

“…after the initial shock of amputation wears off, usually within a year or two, patients stop wearing their prostheses. Even extreme levels of amputation don’t much curb this tendency. Wearing the burdensome prosthetic is simply not justified by the small amount of assistance it provides…”

This accompanying video summarizes the project and is well worth your time!