It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Palestinians launch national football team for amputees Palestinian players with disabilities, part of a football team organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross, take part in a training session in Gaza City (AFP/MOHAMMED ABED) Sakher ABOU EL OUN Thu, December 2, 2021
Players in the Gaza Strip used crutches and prosthetic legs Thursday to stretch, run and dribble as part of the first-ever Palestinian national team that hopes to qualify for the Amputee Football World Cup.
The team trained at the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The 20 players on the team were selected from among five Gaza clubs for players who lost limbs.
Player Hassan Abu Kareem, 38, said his leg was amputated after he was injured in an Israeli raid on Al-Maghazi refugee camp in 2006.
"From the moment of injury, my life has not changed," he told AFP.
"I continued with my ambition and great goal in life, and my goal is to represent Palestine and to make an achievement for myself in the field of sports."
Red Cross spokeswoman Suhair Zakkout said the players were setting a new Palestinian standard after the first local team began in 2019 with several players.
"Today, these players make history by forming the first national football team for amputees," she said.
Zakkout said the players were training for qualifying matches to be held in March 2022 in Iran. If the team succeeds, they will go on to the Amputee Football World Cup, slated to be held in Turkey in late 2022.
Fuad Abu Ghaliun, chairman of the Palestine Amputee Football Association, said his group applied to join the World Amputee Football Federation in 2019. Their candidacy was accepted earlier this year.
The Palestinian team is in the isolated Gaza Strip, whose two million residents have been locked under an Israeli blockade since the Islamist Hamas movement took control in 2007
Friday is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
Coach Simon Baker, himself an amputee, said he was working with players "in a way where people see the football being played, and not the person with a disability."
"We want people to respect the players and see them for Ahmed or whoever it is and not see them as somebody broken. We want to make heroes of these players," said Baker, who founded the Irish Amputee Football Association.
The Palestinian team is in the isolated Gaza Strip, whose two million residents have been locked under an Israeli blockade since the Islamist movement Hamas took control in 2007.
Ahmed Abu Nar, 34, used crutches and said he was injured in 2018 by Israeli forces who suppressed Gaza protests known as the "Great March of Return".
"Before the injury I was one person, and after the injury I became someone else," he told AFP. "A new life began, new goals began and new ambitions and new challenges, and now I am achieving my goals."
VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH RESEARCHERS, AMPUTEEview more
CREDIT: PART I : FOR THE FIRST 2:57 MINUTES, CC-BY-SA , CREDIT: EPFL. PART II: FROM 2:57 - 4:00, COPYRIGHT: CENTRO PROTESI INAIL
“When I touch the stump with my hand, I feel tingling in my missing hand, my phantom hand. But feeling the temperature variation is a different thing, something important... something beautiful,” says Francesca Rossi.
Rossi is an amputee from Bologna, Italy. She recently participated in a study to test the effects of temperature feedback directly to the skin on her residual arm. She is one of 17 patients to have felt her phantom, missing hand, change in temperature thanks to new EPFL technology. More importantly, she reports feeling reconnected to her missing hand.
“Temperature feedback is a nice sensation because you feel the limb, the phantom limb, entirely. It does not feel phantom anymore because your limb is back,” Rossi continues.
Researchers Silvestro Micera and Solaiman Shokur have been keen on incorporating new sensory feedback into prosthetic limbs for providing more realistic touch to amputees, and their latest study focuses on temperature. They stumbled upon a discovery about temperature feedback that far exceeds their expectations.
If you place something hot or cold on the forearm of an intact individual, that person will feel the object’s temperature locally, directly on their forearm. But in amputees, that temperature sensation on the residual arm may be felt… in the phantom, missing hand.
By providing temperature feedback non-invasively, via thermal electrodes (aka thermodes) placed against the skin on the residual arm, amputees like Rossi report feeling temperature in their phantom limb. They can feel if an object is hot or cold, and can tell if they are touching copper, plastic or glass. In a collaboration between EPFL, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) and Centro Protesi Inail, the technology was successfully tested in 17 out of 27 patients. The results are published in Science.
“Of particular importance is that phantom thermal sensations are perceived by the patient as similar to the thermal sensations experienced by their intact hand," explains Shokur, EPFL senior scientist neuroengineer who co-led the study.
Towards realistic bionic touch
The projection of temperature sensations into the phantom limb has led to the development of new bionic technology, one that equips prosthetics with non-invasive temperature feedback that allows amputees to discern what they’re touching.
“Temperature feedback is essential for relaying information that goes beyond touch, it leads to feelings of affection. We are social beings and warmth is an important part of that,” says Micera, Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Translational Neuroengineering, professor at EPFL and SSSA who also co-led the study. “For the first time, after many years of research in my laboratory showing that touch and position information can be successfully delivered, we envisage the possibility of restoring all of the rich sensations that one’s natural hand can provide.”
Temperature feedback, from well-being to prosthetics
Metaphysiks has been developing neuro-haptic technology, MetaTouch, which connects the body with digital worlds. MetaTouch combines touch and temperature feedback to augment physical products for well-being.
“This breakthrough highlights the power of haptics to improve medical conditions and enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities,” says Simon Gallo, Co-founder and Head of Technology at Metaphysiks.
The EPFL neuroengineers borrowed MetaTouch that provides thermal feedback directly to a user’s skin. With this device, they discovered the thermal phantom sensations and subsequently tested it in 27 amputees.
The Minitouch prototype and tests
For the study, Shokur and Micera developed the MiniTouch, a device that provides thermal feedback and specifically built for integration into wearable devices like prosthetics. The MiniTouch consists of a thin, wearable sensor that can be placed over an amputee’s prosthetic finger. The finger sensor detects thermal information about the object being touched, more specifically, the object’s heat conductivity. If the object is metallic, it will naturally conduct more heat or cold than, for instance, a plastic one. A thermode, one that is in contact with the skin on the amputee’s residual arm, heats up or cools down, relaying the temperature profile of the object being touched by the finger sensor.
“When we presented the possibility to get back temperature sensation on the phantom limb or the possibility to feel the contact with different materials, we obtained a lot of positive feedback. And eventually, we were able to recruit more than 25 volunteers in less than two years,” says Federico Morosato who was responsible for organizing the clinical aspect of the trials at Centro Protesi Inail.
The scientists found that small areas of skin on the residual arm project to specific parts of the phantom hand, like the thumb, or the tip of an index finger. As expected, they discovered that the mapping of temperature sensations between the residual arm and the entire projected phantom one is unique to each patient.
Bionic prosthetics for repairing the human body
Almost a decade ago, Micera and colleagues provided real-time sensory feedback about objects being grasped. They went on to improve touch resolution by providing feedback about an object’s texture and position information in a reliable way. Moreover, they discovered that amputees begin to embody their prosthetic hand if provided with sensory feedback directly into their intact nervous system. The added sensation of temperature feedback is yet another step towards building bionic prosthetics for repairing the human body. Fine-tuning temperature sensations and integrating these into a wearable device that can be mapped out to each patient are part of the next steps.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY
IMAGE: JOHNNY MATHENY, A PROSTHETICS TESTER, DETERMINES WHICH COLA CAN IS THE COLDEST USING A MODULAR PROSTHETIC LIMB AND THIN-FILM THERMOELECTRIC DEVICE, BOTH DEVELOPED BY THE JOHNS HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY.view more
CREDIT: ED WHITMAN / JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) researchers have developed one of the world’s smallest, most intense and fastest refrigeration devices, the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC), and teamed with neuroscientists to help amputees perceive a sense of temperature with their phantom limbs. This advancement, one of the first of its kind, enables a useful new capability for a variety of applications, including improved prostheses, haptics for new modalities in augmented reality (AR) and thermally-modulated therapeutics for applications such as pain management. The technology also has a variety of potential industrial and research applications, such as cooling electronics and lasers and energy harvesting in satellites.
TFTEC development at APL started in 2016, when Rama Venkatasubramanian, a semiconductor device engineer and chief technologist for APL’s thermoelectrics research, began developing advanced nano-engineered thermoelectric materials and devices for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) MATRIX program. To support MATRIX, APL developed advanced thin-film thermoelectric materials called Controlled Hierarchically Engineered Superlattice Structures (CHESS), to enable an entirely new set of transduction capabilities for several Department of Defense applications, including cooling computer chips and engine components.
Venkatasubramanian’s strides in CHESS thermoelectrics were so significant by the end of 2019 that Bobby Armiger, who supervises APL’s Exploratory Science Branch, wondered if his devices could be used to facilitate temperature sensation in phantom limbs of amputees for improved prostheses. Since 2006, APL had been leading DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, an effort focused on creating a mentally controlled artificial limb that will restore near-natural motor and sensory capability to upper-extremity amputee patients.
“We’ve known that we can stimulate specific parts of someone’s amputated limb to feel sensations of touch and vibration, but no one has been able to create a cooling sensation with the speed, intensity, and efficiency to restore natural thermal perception with a prosthetic system,” Armiger said. “Restoring temperature sensation has practical applications — like identifying a cold beverage — as well as having the potential to improve the emotional embodiment of the prosthetic device, perhaps by feeling the warmth of a loved one’s hand.”
Venkatasubramanian and the thermoelectrics team began collaborating with Armiger and a team of neuroscientists and roboticists as part of a study supported by the Center for Rehabilitation Sciences Research within the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), through a subaward from The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine to create a wearable thermoelectric cooler fast and intense enough to match the human body’s ability to rapidly sense temperature changes.
From that, the wearable TFTEC was created.
“Our TFTEC is just a little more than one millimeter thick, weighs only 0.05 grams, similar to a thin adhesive bandage, and can provide intense cooling in less than a second,” said Venkatasubramanian. “It’s also two times more energy efficient than today’s most common thermoelectric devices, and can be readily manufactured using semiconductor tools that are also used for manufacturing light-emitting diodes [LEDs]. It’s an exciting development that could have huge implications for prostheses and haptics applications.”
To test the TFTEC’s efficacy, researchers mapped thermal sensations in the phantom hands of four amputees.
“When someone loses part of a limb, the nerves within the residual limb are still there, which can lead to the ‘phantom’ limb sensation,” said Luke Osborn, a neuroengineering researcher who leads much of APL’s noninvasive nerve simulation work. “You can place electrodes on different parts of an amputee’s upper arm where those nerves have regrown and stimulate sensation — typically pressure, but in the current case, temperature —and the individual can tell us where in their phantom hand they feel those sensations.”
Nature Biomedical Engineering recently published results from APL’s extensive TFTEC research for such sensory applications, which included lab-scale characterization, trials with amputees and a real-life demonstration of the approach. The study notes that the TFTEC elicited cooling sensations in the phantom limbs of all participants during a cold detection task, whereas traditional thermoelectric technology only did so in half of them — and the TFTEC did so eight times faster and with three times the intensity. Additionally, TFTEC used half the energy compared to current thermoelectric devices.
“We found that the TFTEC device was significantly better at creating faster and more intense cooling sensations compared to traditional devices, even though the target temperature was the same,” said Osborn. “And that helped participants make faster decisions and observations.”
The stimulation sites on test participants remained the same over 48 weeks of testing, suggesting that the technology could enable users to feel temperature in their missing hands for years. This temporal stability along with a wearable noninvasive procedure are attractive for adoption to real-world use.
“When we started our work in March 2020, we realized that within just a couple of trials we could stimulate the phantom limbs of an amputee,” said Venkatasubramanian. “We heard participants say, ‘Yes, I felt an immediate cold feeling here and a tingle there.’”
The APL team continued to perfect its approach through testing on several individuals with amputation along with those with an intact limb. “These are the developments we dream of as scientists,” Venkatasubramanian continued. “We spend years in the lab, and to see our technology have an impact on someone’s quality of life, like an amputee to perceive the natural thermal world, is incredibly satisfying.”
Capable of generating realistic and informative thermal signals for human perception — at a fraction of the energy and size compared to today’s cooling technologies — the devices’ low-profile, high-speed, and lightweight nature make them suitable for skin surface applications without hindrances that could affect movement.
“It has been great to see the translation of this APL-developed thermoelectric technology into the healthcare domain through this first-of-kind demonstration in an amputee,” said David Drewry, a biomedical engineer and program manager within APL’s National Health Mission Area. “We look forward to expanding the results in more robust clinical trials and integrating the device into other wearable form factors that can be readily deployed to individuals in need of sensory restoration or haptic feedback.”
Katy Carneal, a biomedical engineer and assistant program manager a biomedical engineer and assistant program manager who leads innovative health-related research at APL sees a vast set of future applications for the miniaturized thermoelectric technology. “There are so many ways that pressure and temperature sensations impact the human body,” said Carneal. “In addition to improving quality of life for amputees, we’ve opened a lot of research doors that can help us study and find new treatments for neuromuscular diseases or chronic pain.”
Dr. Paul Pasquina, the chair of PM&R at USU, echoed that enthusiasm while praising the work of the APL team. “What a privilege it is to work with such expert engineers to come up with solutions to help real-world patients, including our wounded warriors with limb loss,” he said.
APL is uniquely qualified to advance the art-of-the-possible for novel health applications by exploring this intersection of materials science and electronic device engineering with biology and neuroscience. In addition to the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, APL is making significant advances in neural interface research, improving genomics tools and monitoring physical fatigue to prevent warfighter injuries among many other advancements in the National Health Mission Area.
Evoking natural thermal perceptions using a thin-film thermoelectric device with high cooling power density and speed
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
27-Jul-2023
COI STATEMENT
R.V., L.E.O., M.H., J.M.P. and R.S.A. are inventors on intellectual property pertaining to thin-#ilm thermoelectric devices and US patents 11,227,988 and 11,532,778 and application 18/071,789. R.V. and J.M.P. are inventors on US patent 10,903,139. The Johns Hopkins University is the applicant on these patents. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Monday, August 16, 2021
Inflatable robotic hand gives amputees real-time tactile control
Prosthetic enables a wide range of daily activities, such as zipping a suitcase, shaking hands, and petting a cat.
IMAGE: AN MIT-DEVELOPED INFLATABLE ROBOTIC HAND GIVES AMPUTEES REAL-TIME TACTILE CONTROL. THE SMART HAND IS SOFT AND ELASTIC, WEIGHS ABOUT HALF A POUND, AND COSTS A FRACTION OF COMPARABLE PROSTHETICS.view more
CREDIT: COURTESY OF XUANHE ZHAO, SHAOTING LIN, ET AL
For the more than 5 million people in the world who have undergone an upper-limb amputation, prosthetics have come a long way. Beyond traditional mannequin-like appendages, there is a growing number of commercial neuroprosthetics — highly articulated bionic limbs, engineered to sense a user’s residual muscle signals and robotically mimic their intended motions.
But this high-tech dexterity comes at a price. Neuroprosthetics can cost tens of thousands of dollars and are built around metal skeletons, with electrical motors that can be heavy and rigid.
Now engineers at MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have designed a soft, lightweight, and potentially low-cost neuroprosthetic hand. Amputees who tested the artificial limb performed daily activities, such as zipping a suitcase, pouring a carton of juice, and petting a cat, just as well as — and in some cases better than —those with more rigid neuroprosthetics.
The researchers found the prosthetic, designed with a system for tactile feedback, restored some primitive sensation in a volunteer’s residual limb. The new design is also surprisingly durable, quickly recovering after being struck with a hammer or run over with a car.
The smart hand is soft and elastic, and weighs about half a pound. Its components total around $500 — a fraction of the weight and material cost associated with more rigid smart limbs.
“This is not a product yet, but the performance is already similar or superior to existing neuroprosthetics, which we’re excited about,” says Xuanhe Zhao, professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. “There’s huge potential to make this soft prosthetic very low cost, for low-income families who have suffered from amputation.”
Zhao and his colleagues have published their work today in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Co-authors include MIT postdoc Shaoting Lin, along with Guoying Gu, Xiangyang Zhu, and collaborators at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Big Hero hand
The team’s pliable new design bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain inflatable robot in the animated film “Big Hero 6.” Like the squishy android, the team’s artificial hand is made from soft, stretchy material — in this case, the commercial elastomer EcoFlex. The prosthetic comprises five balloon-like fingers, each embedded with segments of fiber, similar to articulated bones in actual fingers. The bendy digits are connected to a 3-D-printed “palm,” shaped like a human hand.
Rather than controlling each finger using mounted electrical motors, as most neuroprosthetics do, the researchers used a simple pneumatic system to precisely inflate fingers and bend them in specific positions. This system, including a small pump and valves, can be worn at the waist, significantly reducing the prosthetic’s weight.
Lin developed a computer model to relate a finger’s desired position to the corresponding pressure a pump would have to apply to achieve that position. Using this model, the team developed a controller that directs the pneumatic system to inflate the fingers, in positions that mimic five common grasps, including pinching two and three fingers together, making a balled-up fist, and cupping the palm.
The pneumatic system receives signals from EMG sensors — electromyography sensors that measure electrical signals generated by motor neurons to control muscles. The sensors are fitted at the prosthetic’s opening, where it attaches to a user’s limb. In this arrangement, the sensors can pick up signals from a residual limb, such as when an amputee imagines making a fist.
The team then used an existing algorithm that “decodes” muscle signals and relates them to common grasp types. They used this algorithm to program the controller for their pneumatic system. When an amputee imagines, for instance, holding a wine glass, the sensors pick up the residual muscle signals, which the controller then translates into corresponding pressures. The pump then applies those pressures to inflate each finger and produce the amputee’s intended grasp.
Going a step further in their design, the researchers looked to enable tactile feedback — a feature that is not incorporated in most commercial neuroprosthetics. To do this, they stitched to each fingertip a pressure sensor, which when touched or squeezed produces an electrical signal proportional to the sensed pressure. Each sensor is wired to a specific location on an amputee’s residual limb, so the user can “feel” when the prosthetic’s thumb is pressed, for example, versus the forefinger.
Good grip
To test the inflatable hand, the researchers enlisted two volunteers, each with upper-limb amputations. Once outfitted with the neuroprosthetic, the volunteers learned to use it by repeatedly contracting the muscles in their arm while imagining making five common grasps.
After completing this 15-minute training, the volunteers were asked to perform a number of standardized tests to demonstrate manual strength and dexterity. These tasks included stacking checkers, turning pages, writing with a pen, lifting heavy balls, and picking up fragile objects like strawberries and bread. They repeated the same tests using a more rigid, commercially available bionic hand and found that the inflatable prosthetic was as good, or even better, at most tasks, compared to its rigid counterpart.
One volunteer was also able to intuitively use the soft prosthetic in daily activities, for instance to eat food like crackers, cake, and apples, and to handle objects and tools, such as laptops, bottles, hammers, and pliers. This volunteer could also safely manipulate the squishy prosthetic, for instance to shake someone’s hand, touch a flower, and pet a cat.
In a particularly exciting exercise, the researchers blindfolded the volunteer and found he could discern which prosthetic finger they poked and brushed. He was also able to “feel” bottles of different sizes that were placed in the prosthetic hand, and lifted them in response. The team sees these experiments as a promising sign that amputees can regain a form of sensation and real-time control with the inflatable hand.
The team has filed a patent on the design, through MIT, and is working to improve its sensing and range of motion.
“We now have four grasp types. There can be more,” Zhao says. “This design can be improved, with better decoding technology, higher-density myoelectric arrays, and a more compact pump that could be worn on the wrist. We also want to customize the design for mass production, so we can translate soft robotic technology to benefit society.”
###
Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
JOURNAL
Nature Biomedical Engineering
DOI
10.1038/s41551-021-00767-0
ARTICLE TITLE
A soft neuroprosthetic hand providing simultaneous myoelectric control and tactile feedback
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
16-Aug-2021
Sunday, October 10, 2021
‘Life changer’: Saskatchewan amputee raising awareness about new procedure
A Saskatchewan man who had one of his legs amputated nearly four decades ago has now become the first patient in the province to undergo a surgery called osseointegration of limbs and now he wants to spread awareness about this life-altering procedure. Taz Dhaliwal has the details.
A Saskatchewanamputee wants to raise awareness about a procedure he says has greatly improved his quality of life.
Ron Patterson is now the first person in Saskatchewan to have had osseointegration limb replacement performed on his amputated leg, but he’s hoping that will quickly change.
Osseointegration limb replacement involves fusing the bone to a metallic implant.
Ron broke his ankle in 1978, months after marrying his wife, Shelly.
“I used to drive an earthmover, heavy equipment for building roads and I slipped on some frost on the ladder and went down and landed on a rock,” Ron said.
Ron’s ankle was put in a cast and later operated on and put back in a cast. He says a window wasn’t cut into the cast, so it couldn’t be cleaned. The wound bled and later become infected.
Ron was given two choices; take drugs for the rest of his life that would cause him to lose his driver’s license, or lose part of his leg.
He decided to let doctors amputate his leg in 1984.
Ron wore a socket prosthesis for over 30 years. He said for about 20 years, the socket worked well for him, but then he developed sores around the stump, along with a reliance on prescription drugs.
“I was on morphine and it just got to the point, my body got used to morphine, so they put me on fentanyl and it was starting to get to the point my body was used to fentanyl and it wasn’t working as it was when it first started,” Ron explained.
He also developed neuroma, which Ron said was painful when he put pressure on it.
The pain got so bad Ron had to sell his cattle.
This is when Ron started looking into other options, including osseointegration limb replacement.
He was referred to a doctor In Alberta who had good and bad news for him.
“The bad news was that they were only going to do people from Alberta,” Ron said.
Dr. Robert Turcotte is an orthopedic surgeon at McGill Health Centre specializing in musculoskeletal cancer and osseointegration.
“By having this piece of metal anchored into the bone, sticking out through the skin, we allow the amputee to directly connect to the prosthesis through the metal implant, thus avoiding the discomfort and limitations of the socket prosthesis,” Turcotte explained.
The surgery is ideal for amputees who have experienced pain and discomfort when wearing a socket.
Turcotte said in the warmer months, stumps can become hot and wet from sweat, causing the socket to swivel, which makes walking difficult.
Socket prosthetics also take five to 10 minutes to put on, especially for mid-thigh amputees.
The osseointegration prosthetic takes 10 seconds to click on.
Turcotte says this is especially helpful for bi-lateral amputees.
Turcotte said the program in Montreal has the ability to perform 50 osseointegration surgeries a year, but COVID-19 has impacted how many patients they can operate on. He estimates there are 10 to 15 patients currently on the waitlist for the procedure.
5:42Amputee body builder inspires millionsAmputee body builder inspires millions – Aug 9, 2021
The surgery and prosthesis are also costly, Turcotte said.
At the moment, Quebec covers the surgery under its health-care system. Turcotte’s office needs to be granted permission to perform the surgery on Ontario residents from that province’s health-care system.
Ron had his surgery covered by a workers compensation fund from the government of Saskatchewan, although he said it took around five years for the province to finally give the green light on their end in order for him to be able to get the operation.
Turcotte explained that some provinces are reluctant to cover the surgery because they believe it to be experimental.
“It is not anymore. We know a bit about the complication and the short and mid-term result. For most of our patients, this is a life changer. It gives them a degree of liberty, of freedom, of the ability to wear their prosthesis all day long,” Turcotte said.
About 30 osseointegration surgeries have been performed in Montreal so far. The first procedure was completed three years ago. Turcotte added that demand is low for the operation.
“We don’t have hundreds of amputees waiting for the surgery.”
Turcotte said the surgery is more common for lower limb amputees but mid-arm amputees have also had osseointegration completed successfully.
There are limitations on who can get the surgery, too. Patients need to be of normal body weight, not smoke, or have significant health conditions.
After going through with the procedure in November 2020, Ron said he’s sharing his story so other amputees can now about the procedure and decide if it’s something they want to pursue.
“I can pretty well do anything I could before with my leg,” Ron said.
“It’s like having your own leg again.”
He added he could even go back into raising cattle if he was younger.
Both Ron and his wife said although he missed out on playing several sports with their three sons when they were younger, however, they’re grateful he’ll at least be able to do more with his grandchildren now.
“I feel like a million dollars. I do. It’s just my quality of life is back and everybody that sees me and talks to me, the new me (versus) before and the drugs I was living on, they just said I look a lot better (and) I seem a lot healthier.”
Ron also said he’s happy to be drug free now and not have to take strong prescription medication like fentanyl or morphine.
“I can walk and do just as much as anybody else in the world.”
Ron called the day he had the operation “the best day of my life” and he hopes the surgery can become more available to other amputees.
He wishes he could have gotten it done 30 years earlier.
Ron said he’s more than willing to speak to anyone who wishes to reach out to him with questions about the procedure and his personal experience with it. He said he just want to helps others reach a more comfortable lifestyle as amputees with the possibilities that are out there.
Shelly is just as glad Ron had the procedure, saying he wasn’t the easiest person to live with earlier.
“He was really irritable and probably a lot of that was also due to the pain, but also because of the drugs. I know because he’s a totally different person since he’s off of (drugs),” Shelly said.
Shelly agrees with Ron that if an amputee qualifies for the surgery, they should look into it.
“I just wish it would have happened a long, long time ago. But that’s life,” Shelly said.
Saturday, April 30, 2022
102 marathons in 102 days: Amputee’s unofficial world record
Jacky Hunt-Broersma runs her 102nd marathon in 102 days, this one at Veterans Oasis Park, Thursday, April 28, 2022, in Chandler, Ariz.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — As Forrest Gump in the Oscar-winning 1994 film of the same name, lead actor Tom Hanks abruptly trots to a halt after more than three years of nonstop running and tells his followers: “I’m pretty tired — I think I’ll go home now.”
Jacky Hunt-Broersma can relate. On Thursday, the amputee athlete achieved her goal of running 102 marathons in as many days, setting an unofficial women’s world record.
And she can’t stop/won’t stop, saying she’ll run two more for good measure and wrap up her challenge on Saturday with 104. “I might as well end April with a marathon,” she told The Associated Press.
Britain-based Guinness World Records did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. It can take up to a year for the organization to ratify a world record.
Guinness lists the men’s record for consecutive daily marathons as 59, set in 2019 by Enzo Caporaso of Italy.
“I’m just happy that I made it — I can’t believe it,” she said. “The best thing was the incredible support I’ve received from people around the world who’ve reached out, telling me how this has inspired them to push themselves.”
Hunt-Broersma, 46, began her quest on Jan. 17, covering the classic 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) marathon distance on a loop course laid out near her home in Gilbert, Arizona, or on a treadmill indoors. Since then, it’s been “rinse and repeat” every day for the South Africa native, who lost her left leg below the knee to a rare cancer and runs on a carbon-fiber prosthesis.
Her original goal was to run 100 marathons in 100 days so she’d beat the record of 95 set in 2020 by Alyssa Amos Clark, a nondisabled runner from Bennington, Vermont, who took it on as a pandemic coping strategy. But earlier this month, after nondisabled British runner Kate Jayden unofficially broke Clark’s record with 101 marathons in 101 days, Hunt-Broersma realized she’d need to run at least 102.
On foot, day in and day out, she’s covered 2,672 miles (4,300 kilometers) — the equivalent of running from her Phoenix suburb to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, or from New York City to Mexico City.
Along the way, Hunt-Broersma gained a huge social media following and raised nearly $27,000 to help fellow amputee blade runners get the expensive prostheses they need. Health insurance typically doesn’t cover the cost, which can exceed $10,000.
Hunt-Broersma, who ran her 92nd at this month’s Boston Marathon, hopes her quest will inspire people everywhere to push themselves to do hard things.
What’s next for the endurance athlete? A 240-mile (386-kilometer) ultra race to be staged over mountainous terrain in October in Moab, Utah.
___
Kole reported from Boston.
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Assistive tech project to enhance prosthetic sockets and speed-up rehabilitation for amputees
IMAGE: QUADRUPLE AMPUTEE, ALEX LEWIS, WITH DR ELENA SEMINATI AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BATH.view more
CREDIT: ANDREW DUNNE / UNIVERSITY OF BATH
Individuals who require prosthetic limbs to be fitted following amputations are set to benefit from new technology being developed by researchers at the University of Bath.
If you have an amputation and require a prosthetic limb you need a socket fitted. This is the interface which connects the prosthetic to the residual limb (sometimes known as the stump). However, sizing and fitting the right socket can take months and require multiple trips back and forth to hospital, as the stump can change size and shape as it heals. This delay can seriously impair rehabilitation and quality of life.
Take the case of Alex Lewis. In 2013 aged just 33, Alex contracted a rare form of invasive Group A Strep followed by septicaemia. This led to him having all four limbs amputated and facial reconstruction. Yet, 10 years on, Alex is now helping with this project hoping to improve support for people who find themselves in a similar position in the future.
He explains: “For me, the socket fit in Roehampton took between 4 and 5 weeks to get right. For an amputee though, you want to be wearing this prosthetic as soon as possible, to be able to regain your independence. It just took a long, long time and lots of interactions. It was a long and laboured process.”
Through the new collaborative project being led by Dr Nicola Bailey and Dr Elena Seminati, the team from Bath hopes to dramatically speed up this process. They believe this could have big impacts on patient rehabilitation in the UK and internationally, in particular across low- and middle-income countries.
In England, 45,000 people rely on prosthetic limbs, with more than 5,000 people each year having new lower-limb amputations. Globally, around 100 million people need a prosthetic limb. It’s estimated that around 80% of those across low- and middle-income countries don’t have access to appropriate support.
The researchers’ aim is to develop technology that can enable patients and their families to photograph the remaining residual limb remotely at home, for example using a mobile phone or digital camera. The goal is to replicate the results clinicians can get in specialist hospitals using high-end 3D scanners, but remotely and at a fraction of the cost.
The researchers’ aim is to develop technology that can enable patients and their families to photograph the remaining residual limb remotely at home, for example using a mobile phone or digital camera. The goal is to replicate the results clinicians can get in specialist hospitals using high-end 3D scanners, but remotely and at a fraction of the cost.
Dr Elena Seminati from the University’s Department for Health has led work improving support for amputees over several years, including with the University’s Centre for the Analysis of Motion Capture (CAMERA). She explains how this approach could be beneficial both for patients and for clinicians.
She said: “For amputees, each socket needs to be personalised, so it fits the shape of the residual limb, and it has to be designed quickly so that patients are able to get back to a relatively normal life as soon as possible. Through this work we want to find ways to speed up this process so as to improve rehabilitation for patients.”
Dr Nicola Bailey from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who will lead the work, added: “There is a huge potential for impact through this project. The numbers of people with amputations worldwide is growing, and we know they can face serious physical and psychosocial disabilities which compromise their quality of life.
“Prosthetics can certainly improve people’s independence and inclusion, but to maximise prosthetic users’ experience and comfort, a well-fitting prosthetic socket is vital. By trialling, testing and developing new technologies we hope to find ways to better support patients and to help them in the recovery process.”
Alex Lewis added: “My hope through this work is that we can cut the time period down to give patients a much better outcome.”
La Brea Star Zyra Gorecki on Representing Fellow Amputees in Historic Series Regular Role
Dory Jackson NBC's newest drama La Brea arrived with a dramatic premiere Tuesday that saw a family separated by a massive sinkhole emerging in Los Angeles, resulting in some residents dropping below the surface into a strange realm. And not only does the series promise a trove of twists and turns, it also serves as an introduction to actress Zyra Gorecki.
"To be a person that other amputees [and] other limb-different people can look up to ... is a completely indescribable feeling," she tells PEOPLE
Hailing from Michigan, the 19-year-old plays Izzy Harris, a teen whose mom and brother fall through the sinkhole. Like her character, Gorecki is an amputee: She lost her foot in a logging accident when she was 14. (She received her prosthetic from Amputee Blade Runners.) Gorecki's casting in La Brea makes her one of the first limb-different actors to land a series regular role on television. Asked how she feels about representing her community in such a major way, Gorecki says, "Phenomenal."
"To be a person that other amputees [and] other limb-different people can look up to and say, 'I can do that. I can do this. I can achieve my dreams,' is a completely indescribable feeling," she tells PEOPLE. "When I walked out of the theater after watching Wonder Woman, I looked at my sister and I said, 'I can do anything.' And that's what I want to be to other people."
Gorecki's advice to other actors with limb-difference is to "just go in there and rock it."
"Honestly, nobody cares if you have a fake leg, if you have a fake arm [or] if you look different. Nobody cares. Not really. And if they do, they don't matter," she says. "Go in there, show them what you got. If they don't like it, move on. It wasn't meant to be."
And that's exactly what Gorecki has done. The teen, who got her start in modeling, found out about the La Brea opportunity through a friend and fellow actor at Camp No Limits, which caters to young people impacted by limb loss.
The actress recalls having "terrible anxiety going into all the auditions" but says the process went "very quickly." And when she was offered the part, she was elated.
To portray the character of Izzy as accurately as possible, series creator David Appelbaum would consult with Gorecki on set about how to properly showcase the experience of someone with limb-difference.
"He would talk to me and go, 'Hey, is this what this experience is like?'" Gorecki says. "For him to come to me and actually ask me what being an amputee is like and adding that into the scene made such a difference."
As for what fans can expect from the new series, Gorecki says there are many more surprises in store.
"I think there's a lot to be surprised by because there are so many different stories," she says. "Everybody, every single person, every single character that you see has a different story, and every single person's story is absolutely fascinating."
Sunday, January 07, 2024
Q&A: Actress Alaqua Cox and Director Sydney Freeland from Marvel Studio’s New Series, Echo
Echo, the latest Disney+ series from Marvel Studios, tells the story of a Native American woman, Maya Lopez, who rises to become boss of the New York street gang Tracksuit Mafia under the tutelage of crime lord Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), all while being deaf and a leg amputee.
Alaqua Cox (Menominee), who is also an amputee and deaf, reprises her character from Hawkeye, torn between the criminal underworld and the Choctaw family that shaped her childhood, leading her to return to her hometown where she must come to terms with her past, reconnect with her Native American roots, and embrace her family and community.
Native News Online spoke with director Sydney Freeland as she discussed Marvel's partnership with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Maya’s superpowers and what she is excited about for audiences to learn about Indian Country. We also spoke to Cox about her starring role.
All episodes of Echo will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu on January 10, and will be available on Hulu until April 9, 2024.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Native News Online: How is the show different from other shows that you have previously written and directed?
Sydney Freeland: I am so excited that we get to have the MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) first Native Indigenous badass. We say that because she is not a hero but a villain, and that is one of the things that I find so interesting about the character. What was so great about Hawkeye was the fact that she was a villain and criminal. We really leaned into that. I am really excited for audiences to see different corners of the MCU but also for Marvel fans to be introduced to Indian Country.
NNO: While Maya’s identity in the comics is traditionally associated with the Blackfeet Tribe, why did the creative team behind the scenes make the change to Choctaw?
SD: We have deaf representation and Indigenous representation. In the first comic book run, the character Maya Lopez is Blackfeet, and Daredevil is beautifully illustrated, and there is a bunch of Native American iconography and imagery, but it's arbitrary. There are things from the ancestral Pueblos in the Southwest, and it's like, “Oh, that’s Inuit from Alaska, and that's Six Nations from New York.” That's not the fault of the illustrators, but it was just the resource they had at the time when making this. We wanted it to be as authentic as possible because we had Choctaw writers in the writing room. I think that it came about organically being able to engage the Choctaw Nation and their input and advice on things that sealed the deal for us.
NNO: Can you explain Maya's superpowers within the show and why they differ from her comic book counterpart?
SD: On the deaf perspective side in the comic books, Maya Lopez is also an expert lip reader. “I am Indigenous, but I am not deaf”, is one of the things we really worked hard to do. [We had] deaf writers in the writer's room, deaf consultants behind the scenes, an ASL [American Sign Language] master who translated scripts from English to ASL, and also deaf-Indigeous actors playing deaf-Indigneous roles. One of the things that we all learned along the way was that even the best lip readers in the world can only understand about 30 percent of everything that is being said. In our efforts for authenticity we decided to deviate from that in the comic books in order for it to be more authentic to the deaf experience. As far as Maya’s powers and how they differ in the series, you will just have to watch and find out how it all comes together.
NNO: What did you love about playing your character Maya Lopez?
Alaqua Cox: “I loved playing her because she is just a really challenging character to become. I had to have an acting coach help me become and use her emotions to be able to become her. She’s full of rage, and when I look at that kind of character, I am able to slowly become her by watching her more and more and thinking about her. She is also stubborn, which I am as well, and that helped me become and embody her.”
We wanted it to be as authentic as possible because we had Choctaw writers in the writing room. I think that it came about organically being able to engage the Choctaw Nation and their input and advice on things that sealed the deal for us. — Sydney Freeland, Director of Marvel Studios' Echo
NNO: What influenced you to pursue your career as an actor?
AC: I never actually ever thought of acting as a career at first. I was sent the casting call from a friend on social media that they were looking for an Indigenous deaf woman in their twenties. At first I said no, but then I had two other people send it to me so I thought I would give it a shot and here we are. Now I have the role, could you imagine if I said no at first, I wouldn’t even be here, but so grateful to be here now.
NNO: How did you go about preparing to play Maya Lopez? Were there lessons from your own background or family history that were brought in to add details into your role?
AC: I prepared myself by meeting with the director beforehand. She helped me develop the character, rehearsed lines together, and wanted to bring Maya to life, which really helped me a lot. I had an acting coach and a deaf consultant who helped me on set that would translate all of my lines from English to ASL, and that is how we became Maya with the help of all those people.
NNO: What do you hope audiences will take away from your character, especially within the Indigenous community?
AC: I think about the importance of family and community because when you think about Maya opening up to her blood family, she struggles with that. She then realizes that she needs to open up somehow and find the understanding of what family means, and I am hoping the audience will be able to see that throughout this series.
Q&A: Richie Palmer, Executive Producer of New Marvel Studio's Series Echo
Marvel Studios' new show Echo is a thrilling new approach to the storytelling comic book fans have come to love from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
The upcoming series' lead character is a deaf amputee Native American anti-hero who was last seen in the Marvel series Hawkeye.
Echo be the first time a Marvel Series has a TV-MA rating, which means the program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and, therefore, may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17. It will also be the first Marvel Studios series to debut simultaneously on Disney+ and Hulu beginning January 10.
Native News Online had the chance to sit down with Echo executive producer Richie Palmer to discuss his involvement in the series, Indigenous representation, shooting his favorite scene, and how actors brought their own personalities to the show.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Native News Online: How did your involvement in the show Echo come about and what drew you to it?
Richie Palmer: We are all big fans of the character Maya Lopez at the studio. I can get very specific with you because she comes from an awesome run of Daredevil comics in the late 90s that I actually remember reading when they were coming out. Those single issues were a very famous run illustrated by Joe Costa and written by David Mack, who has done awesome covers. This was a very iconic period at Marvel comics. [These] characters really stood out and were always a favorite of ours behind the scenes. [We were always] saying, "Wouldn't it be great if we could tell the story of Maya Lopez one day?" It was always a question of how to do it; how do we tell a story about Maya Lopez that isn't going to get bogged down by the rest of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe); and how can we take this character from the comics that we see a lot of potential in and bring her to screen and really tell a story about her and her family and not get it so wrapped up in everything else going on in the larger universe.
NNO: How has Indigenous representation changed during your career so far?
RP: It has definitely grown, and when you have a show like Echo or Reservation Dogs, these shows are bringing things to the forefront that five to 10 years ago wouldn't have been. It has been a real growing experience for us here at Marvel. I hope that Maya Lopez bringing her Native culture to screen in such a grand way because of what we can do at Marvel, I hope that we can also do with other relatively obscure characters from the comics and bring them to the forefront and put them in the spotlight of the Marvel Universe, and with that honor and culture that comes with some of these characters.
NNO: Why is it important to include Indigenous people not only in the cast but in the storylines as well?
RP: We couldn't pick a character like Maya Lopez and put her on screen and not authentically represent who she is as a person. In the comics, her background is a little inconsistent, I would say, so we decided to make her Choctaw because we had writers from all different backgrounds and tribal affiliations in our writer's room. It was our Choctaw writer, Steven Paul Judd, who kept bringing very personal stories to the table, and we wanted to tell the stories he was telling. We had to make sure that we were honoring the Choctaw culture if we were going to tell these stories. We met with the Choctaw Nation, Chief Baton, and his team, and it was an instant partnership. It was so important just because we needed to tell a very entertaining story with a very complex character that was deaf and Choctaw. We needed to make sure that we got those things right. If we don't get those things right, then nobody is going to care about the fun story we are trying to tell with this fun character. It all just went hand in hand, and it was really important that we got those aspects of the character correct.
NNO: Were any of the actors involved in the writing of the language in the series? It has this rich but unexpected comedic nature that I really love about it.
RP: All the actors, especially when using ASL, brought their own personality to their characters. They were all there in terms of dialogue and shorthand, making sure that everything felt authentic to each specific character. We had a producer on set named Doug Ridloff, who was deaf and worked with all the actors to each have their own way of signing. The whole thing was a collaboration where we were working on all the actors' scenes, which kept it loose and fresh and authentic to real humans.
NNO: What was your overall experience producing Echo, and what was your favorite thing about the process?
RP: It was amazing, and we learned a lot. Seeing over the course of making the show what it means to people really grounds you and reminds you of the kind of power that we have and how responsible you have to be with it. For me, it was working with great people like Sydney Freeland, our cinematographers, costume designers, and the production side — we had such a great team on this one.
Everybody was from different backgrounds, and it was truly a special time. A very special sequence we got to do was shoot a powwow. We put on a real powwow and flew in people who are real powwow dancers, drummers, and emcees. We brought in real people and put on a real powwow over five nights. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before in my life.
About The Author Kaili Berg Staff Reporter Kaili Berg (Aleut) is a member of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Nation, and a shareholder of Koniag, Inc. She is a staff reporter for Native News Online and Tribal Business News. Berg, who is based in Wisconsin, previously reported for the Ho-Chunk Nation newspaper, Hocak Worak. She went to school originally for nursing, but changed her major after finding her passion in communications at Western Technical College in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.
