Amputees Support Group

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I'm not an arm amputee, but I have had conversations in the past with those who were, and I think the biggest item on the wish list was "fingers that work like an actual hand".

Recently after my leg amputation I was looking around on the web and found a very realistic looking artificial hand that seemed to offer a great deal of promise toward that wish becoming a reality, but at present, the pro9blems of locating and installing nerve connections or sensory devices to control complex hand movement that a real human hand is capable of is just too doggoned complex a task for the surgeons. 25 to 30 years ago, such a prosthetic was as much a dream as wihing for one more functional.

But, the fact is the technology exists, although right now it's a bit bulky still, and VERY expensive. However, the strides I've seen in what could be done 5 or 10 years ago and the things they have now, kind of make me think the hand will exist before the surgeons work out all the kinks of finding control nerves and how to connect them.

The big problem is, to have a really articulated and functional prosthetic hand, some surgeon is going to have to expose the nerve carrying signals to the muscles, tap into them, and the patient is going to have to be "awake" to carry out verbal instructions such as "straighten your pinkie finger" "Now curl it so it touches your palm" and "now open it halfway between palm and straightened out" and a whole lot of other steps, for each finger individually and as groups.

That's going to be a tedious and probably painful process in spite of local anasthetics.

(And I'm sitting here wishing there will be a doctor come along and say "Oh, we can do it without so much problem as you imagine...." and prove me WRONGWRONGWRONNNNNNG!)

i am a double below elbow amputee , ill help i can , just send me an ask , rick