Bionic Woman
September 16, 2006
Filed under: Did You Know?, Health — Rxbbx @ 8:40 am
Claudia Mitchell lost her left arm in a motorcycle accident in 2004. She received a bionic arm at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. She can move her replacement robotic arm just by thinking.
When her brain gives a command to open her hand, the chest muscle will contract and emit electrical signals. These signals are detected by electrodes in a harness Mitchell wears. A computer translates the signals into commands to the robotic arm.
The battery-operated arm is attached to the harness. It has six motors, which open and close the hand, rotate the wrist, bend the elbow, bend the wrist, rotate the arm and move the arm up and down. The bionic arm is still in experimental stage and not available for general use.
