How to Build a Better Hand
From: Toronto Star - 05/03/2004
By: Elaine Carey

Tom Chau of the Bloorview MacMillan Children's Center has developed an
artificial hand that responds to sounds produced by muscles in the arm, and
employs a sensor to filter out background noises. The prosthesis is outfitted
with a small computer chip that is trained to interpret the user's muscle
sounds and move in the desired way. "The training is mostly in the machine,"
explains Chau, who recently won a five-year, $500,000 Canada Research Chair
in pediatric rehabilitation engineering at the University of Toronto.
Conventional hand prostheses are driven by electrical signals mounted in a
hard plastic socket that must be firmly positioned over the muscle, but these
devices are of limited use to children such as five-year-old Megan Strysio,
who was born without a hand and lower forearm; consequently, the socket must
be mounted over her elbow, which hinders forearm rotation and only allows her
to control the movement of the hand's thumb and first two fingers. Chau's
device is equipped with a soft socket that rolls on, and it enables elbow
rotation and full movement of all five digits because the sensors can be
positioned away from the muscle. Jorge Silva, a colleague of Chau's, programs
the computer chip to correctly interpret the signals, and he notes, "I'm not
training Megan how to use it; I'm teaching the hand how to interpret Megan."
The program will receive updates so that the signals will not change as Megan
gets older and the hand is replaced. Chau thinks the technology can be
applied to the monitoring of vital signs such as heartbeat and respiration,
and he is developing a communication system for severely ill, speech-impaired
children that can decode head turns, eye blinks, and other understated
movements. 

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1083535813358

More links:
http://www.assistivex.com/public/article10.asp
http://www.bloorviewmacmillan.org/aboutus/stories.htm#murmur
