Hello there, readers! Welcome back to my blog as I continue to share my experiences during my clinical rotations in Costa Rica. Last week, Travis and I continued our journey at the Hospital Nacional de Niños (HNN) under the guidance of Dr. Roger Vargas. This week, I have some updates to share as we further explore clinical observations and finalizations that we have had in our design and research process toward building and creating bionic hands for patients with hand amputations.
Initially, in the week, after consulting with Dr. Vargas and Dr. Wettergreen, Travis and I came to the conclusion that it was important to have multiple tracks that we could go down for our research and design process. This meant that we would truly try to make the most of our clinical opportunities in order to find multiple unmet clinical needs that could be solved. This change in thought process helped us find the unmet clinical need that would guide us toward possible solutions that I will discuss later in the blog.
After consulting with Dr. Vargas early in the week, it was clear that a necessity of HNN and other hospitals around the country was for an electric bionic hand instead of the current mechanical version. But what is a bionic hand and what are its uses?
A bionic hand device offers significant benefits to pediatric populations, specifically for children with congenital limb differences, those who have undergone amputations, and individuals with neuromuscular disorders affecting hand function.
In the case of children with congenital limb differences, a bionic hand device provides them with improved functionality and independence. By enabling them to grasp and manipulate objects more effectively, it empowers them to participate more fully in everyday activities, such as self-care, playing, and learning. Consequently, these children experience an enhanced quality of life and greater social integration as they interact with their environment on par with their peers.
Currently, patients that were using bionic hands around Costa Rica were using mechanical models, in which the patient has to flex their elbow strenuously in order for the bionic hand to open or close. Not only was this a cumbersome design for our patients, but it was also a design that did not allow them to improve the plasticity of the muscles in their forearm-to-elbow region, especially the muscles that able-bodied patients would normally use to control their hand and fingers.
To solve this, Travis and I got into preliminary research and started to brainstorm ideas throughout the week on what possible solutions we could create for this issue. While most of these solutions are still in the works, something that we realized that creating an electric bionic hand that would rely on some type of command, whether that was through a switch, button, or even voice control would prove extremely impactful toward improving the users’ quality of life and making sure that the muscles around the forearm were having their plasticity increased, which is vital in early childhood.
Flexy-2 Bionic Hand: This bionic hand is the hand that we hope to develop and add electric components to
We will have more updates regarding this process along with portions of our mid-internship update in next week’s blog! Next week, we will continue our research, start prototyping bionic hand components, and work towards turning our ideas for the electrical hardware into tangible solutions. I can’t wait to share the progress we make in the next blog. Thanks for reading, and I hope to catch you on the next one!