ABSTRACT
Purpose of Review: The aim of this paper is to explore current trends and advancements that lead to improved practitioner knowledge and patient care resulting in better outcomes. It is common for the physiatrist to lead the team of interprofessional practitioners in the care of individuals with upper limb absence. The focus of the care is to understand and access prosthetic options, but there are often other health factors and relevant issues to consider. Recent Findings: Some of the latest updates offer solutions to pain management, prosthetic control, access to relevant evidence, and outcomes-related data. An interesting finding was the influence of telehealth service delivery on multiple issues faced by this population. These issues include lack of information, pain management, monitoring skin breakdown and peripheral vascular disease, prosthetic training, and access to peers and specialized practitioners. Summary: The diverse technology advancements in surgical techniques, materials, outcome measures, and data management, as well as telehealth, work together to assist the collaborative interprofessional team to provide contemporary and comprehensive care to this unique population.
ABSTRACT
This article illuminates the major and often overlooked challenge of untethering soft robotic systems through the context of recent work, in which soft robotic gripper technology enabled by jamming of granular media was applied to a prosthetic jamming terminal device (PJTD). The PJTD's technical and market feasibility was evaluated in a pilot study with two upper-limb amputees. A PJTD prototype was tested against a commercial device (Motion Control electric terminal service with a one degree-of-freedom pinching mechanism) using two existing hand function tests: the first quantified the device's speed in picking and placing small blocks and the second evaluated a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). The PJTD prototype performed slightly slower than its commercial counterpart in the first test. While both participants successfully completed all the ADLs with both devices in the second test, the commercial device scored marginally higher. Results suggested that PJTD can have potential benefits over existing terminal devices, such as providing the capability to firmly grasp tools due to the ability of PJTD to conform to arbitrary surfaces and reducing compensatory shoulder movements due to its axisymmetric design. Some downsides were that users reported fatigue while operating the PJTD, as most operations require pushing the PJTD against target objects to adequately conform to them. The greatest drawback for the PJTD is also a major roadblock preventing a number of soft robotic research projects from making an impact in real-world applications: pneumatic technology required for operating the PJTD is currently too large and heavy to enable compact untethered operation.
