A Sense of Feeling

An topic I have never personally thought much about is the sense of feel with prosthetic users. I have of course thought that amputees couldn't feel with their prosthetics and how that could be something that amputees miss. However, I never thought that not being able to feel with a prosthetic limb could be extremely hindering or even frustrating. A prime example of this is whether or not a person is grabbing a cup with enough force to hold the cup without breaking the cup. If you have a prosthetic limb without feeling, the only way to know if you are holding the cup is see whether or not you have a grip on the cup and hope that is enough grip to hold the cup. The first step in researching how to give amputees feeling came from nerve transplants from the lost hand to the amputees chest. Doctors found that the amputee could feel hand sensation in the area of their chest wear the hand nerves were transplanted. One experiment was conducted in which two amputees had nerves from their hand transplanted to their chest. After a period of about two months the patients nerves were tested. One patient felt sensation in multiple fingers at once when his chest was touched in the transplant area. The other patient could feel sensation in individual fingers depending on the location of the touch on her chest. Both patients could feel hot and cold and could tell the difference between two grades of sand paper. However, the fingers were rearranged in the sense that the feeling for the middle finger did not necessarily occur between the feeling of the pointer and ring fingers. Researchers say they are a long way from perfecting this art of nerve transplanting and linking to prosthetics, but if they can give amputees any feeling at all then that is helpful and better than nothing.

I think this is amazing. Like I said before I had never put much thought into this. However, if this technology could be perfected, then an amputee could have everything a person with a normal arm has except the aesthetic appearance of a real arm. Although research is being made into the development of artificial skin, so prosthetics might represent their natural counterparts in their appearance in the near future.