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Hands and Fingers
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The hand is the part of the arm below the wrist. Extending from the arm is five parts, which with the exception of the thumb are called fingers. The hands together with the fingers help in manipulation skills, writing, griping, typing etc. In some people the hand or part of it (finger) is absent, this could be as a result of an accident or congenital abnormalities. People without hands are disabled to do things that involve its use. With the help of modern technology scientist have discovered a solution to this problem, the introduction of prosthetic hands. Prosthetic hands have been demonstrated in many pirate cartoon films in the form of the traditional split hook. Most prosthetic hands are developed by bioengineers working together with researchers and developers. Although not natural prosthetic hands may help handicaps regain or gain their manipulation skills.
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A Scottish Engineer working together with Swedish researchers and U.K. developer David Gow developed Prodigits the worlds first powered prosthetic hand. Amy Higgins describes the structure of the Prodigits in her article Bionic hands for kids Issued on May 3, 2001, "The Prodigit artificial hand has electronic fingers powered by signals from the wrist that let wearers perform simple tasks such as picking up objects." The Prodigits has already been tried and has been fitted to children between the ages 2 and 11 at Nottingham City Hospital. The Prodigit does not work well with large objects and is still under going modification to improve its grip, flexibility and speed of the thumbs and fingers. ADEPT gripper is another type of prosthetic hand. The ADEPT gripper was developed by Bob Radocy, a left-hand amputee and owner of the TRS (Boulder, CO). The ADEPT has two contoured closing halves, which works using lever, cable, and harness system. The ADEPT is easy to work with, because it has a voluntary closing mechanism that gives the user control over the device. Lite-Touch biomechanical hand is yet another type of prosthetic hand designed by TRS and is based on the ADEPT mechanism. The Lite-Touch biomechanical hands are designed for ages three and above. Prosthetic fingers are used where the fingers are lost. The most common prosthetic fingers are those made with a central wire, the drawbacks of this technique is that the fingers become difficult to bend. Jane Bahor a finger amputee and specialist who creates realistic replacement body parts at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina has discovered a way to overcome the problem by using Barbie Doll's plastic knee joint. The joint enables easy gripping.
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