The Bush Administrations contribution to Science via Iraq

[ShaneGR]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20051219/D8EJHUS82.html

(Snip)

Charles Wayne Briggs got tired of forgetting if he'd left his arm in the elbow or hand position, and asked its inventors for a fix. Within an hour, they'd begun wiring a feedback mechanism that today lets amputees move the prosthesis a little more like a real arm.

It's a harsh reality: Artificial hands and arms aren't as advanced as replacements for lower limbs that have enabled amputees to take to the ski slopes and run marathons.
Upper limbs are harder to duplicate; think how many motions a human hand makes. But it's also an issue of demand. There are fewer upper-limb amputees - one for every four lower-limb amputations - half of whom forgo prostheses altogether.

The war in Iraq may spur change. With dozens of troops losing upper limbs, the Defense Department is funding research to develop a better functioning arm within two years, and a brain-controlled robotic arm that looks and acts like a real one within four years.

That's a huge scientific challenge.

But prosthetics specialists say the industry is poised for steady improvements like the one initiated by Briggs, a 62-year-old Texas amputee recruited to pilot-test new limbs - and soldiers will push those changes faster.

"Sadly enough, this war will contribute to the quantum leap," says Dan Conyers, a prosthetist with Advanced Arm Dynamics, the company hired to custom-fit upper-extremity prostheses for troops treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.