A team of Austrian scientists have developed a revolutionary prosthetic leg that can be rewired to a patient's nerve endings. This unprecedented technology not only helps to restore feeling, but it can also help cure the pain of phantom limb.
Hubert Egger developed the new artificial leg as a way of restoring sensation to amputees. He began by rewiring a patient's nerve endings to tissue closer to the surface of their thighs. He then added sensors to the sole of the artificial foot, which allows the foot to sense texture and motion. The sensors can transmit this information up the shaft of the leg and convey the sensations to the brain of the patient.
The prosthetic leg has already been tested on one Austrian amputee, who found that he has regained sensation in his leg and foot. He also found that the device had cured him of debilitating phantom limb pain.
What's Driving This Trend
- Sensation-restoring Prosthetics
- The development of prosthetics with the ability to directly interact and restore the sense of limb movement and texture sensing indicates an opportunity for disruptive innovation in the healthcare industry.
- Nerve-ending Rewiring Technology
- Nerve-ending rewiring technology, as applied to prosthetics capable of restoring sensation beyond the point of amputation, is a major disruptive innovation opportunity for the biomedical engineering industry.
- Phantom-limb Pain Cure
- The introduction of prosthetics that cure phantom-limb pain affords vast potential for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry towards producing non-narcotic pain relief solutions.
Who This Affects Most
- Biomedical Engineering
- The inrushing tide of neural prosthetic technology and advanced prosthetic nerve-interface systems creates innovative opportunities for the biomedical engineering industry.
- Pharmaceuticals
- The introduction of nerve-ending rewiring technology and prosthetics capable of curing phantom-limb pain creates opportunities for innovation in the production of non-narcotic pain relief solutions within the pharmaceutical industry.
- Healthcare
- Embracing the development of nerve-interface prosthetics technology represents opportunities for disruptive innovation in the healthcare industry towards improving patients' health and well-being.
