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Advancing Tools Help Mesh Man, Machine

By Tami Althoff
Staff Writer

NORMAN - A young man jumps off a curb, climbs down a hill then takes a seat on a park bench, firmly planting the soles of both feet flat on the ground. This wouldn't be unusual, except for the fact that the man is wearing a prosthetic foot.

With conventional prosthetics, the man would be unable to sit with his foot plantar flexed. Thanks to a computer-controlled ankle created by engineers at Orthocare Innovations in Oklahoma City, formerly known as Martin Bionics, now it's possible.

'The ankle allows a 70-degree range of motion. A person can walk up or down a hill with much greater ease and safety. It also looks a lot more natural," Jay Martin, director of Orthocare Innovations' Advanced Systems Group, said. 'Just being able to sit down and have the foot plantar flexed can have a great psychological effect on an amputee."

The ankle is only one of the many ways researchers at Orthocare Innovations, the largest independent orthotics and prosthetic research and development group in the United States, are helping to give amputees their lives back.

They are using technologies such as nanotechnology and robotics to make prosthetics more comfortable, more functional and more natural, helping amputees to function close to the way they did before.

For example, Martin's company is involved with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is working to revolutionize prosthetics for soldiers who have suffered an amputation. The goal is to create an electromechanical arm that works almost like a biological limb. The new prosthetic device would allow the upper extremity of the amputee's prosthetic limb to function similar to the anatomical limb in dexterity, feeling and neural control. Martin said his hope is that in the future, computer controlled systems will be able to work seamlessly with the human body.

'Our goal is to give 100 percent functionality back to amputees, but even the most advanced prosthetics aren't close to what God gave us originally," Martin said. 'Meshing man and machine is challenging, and we're working to bridge that gap between the human brain and the prosthetic brain."

Scott Sabolich, owner of Sabolich Prosthetics and Research in Oklahoma City, said the rate at which new designs are being developed is getting increasingly faster.

'Prosthetics has been around for centuries, but only in the past few years have we seen technology emerge that makes it more comfortable," Sabolich said. 'Prosthetics is in a state that typewriters were in back in the 1980s.

That's possible because more money is being allocated to prosthetics research, partly because of the number of amputees produced by the war in Iraq, Sabolich said.

Martin said, 'There is a great need for innovation. We are on the verge of seeing several new things emerge. What is being developed right now in our labs and others will help close the gap to better replicate the human body. It will allow someone to function on a whole a new level. We're very excited to see that come to pass."

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