Amputee puts limb system through its paces

Friday, December 19, 2014 - 06:00 in Biology & Nature

"Amputee Makes History with APL's Modular Prosthetic Limb" is the headline from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where a team working on prosthetics observed a milestone when a double amputee showed he can control two robotic hands with his mind. Les Baugh of Colorado lost both limbs after an electrical accident over 40 years ago; the team gave him two bionic arms attached from shoulder-level. The rest is the story of what happened when this robotic limb performed functions controlled by his thoughts. Baugh received two Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL) as part of a test run at the Johns Hopkins APL. A team there has been at work on a neurally controlled artificial limb that can restore near-natural motor and sensory capability to upper-extremity amputee patients. Baugh is a noteworthy case of a shoulder-level amputee who wore two MPLs at the same time.

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