Latest Prosthesis Stories

General Assembly Votes Tuesday on SB 1116, and whether to cover cost of artificial limbs ROANOKE, Va., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Virginia's insurance lobby continues to fight hard against passage of a bill that would require insurance companies to offer coverage for artificial limbs as an option to their policyholders. The insurance industry wants to continue treating prosthetic limbs as a medical luxury while amputees demand that the costs be treated the same as other major...

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University in Sweden have succeeded in inducing people with an amputated arm to experience a prosthetic rubber hand as belonging to their own body. The results can lead to the development of a new type of touch-sensitive prosthetic hands.The illusion of having a rubber hand was achieved by the scientists by touching the stump of the amputated arm out of sight of the subject while simultaneously touching the rubber hand in full view of the same...

Welsh engineers have helped to develop micro technology that could lead to a bionic man becoming reality.Experts hope the micro-needle array sensors, which are around the size of a matchstick head, may someday allow amputees to move artificial limbs with brainpower.The sensors comprise of 100 needles just thicker than a human hair and were developed and manufactured by Cardiff University firm MicroBridge Services. The sensor would sit on the brain and send out nerve impulses to...

The concept of an ankle replacement for patients with immobilizing pain wasn't first introduced until the 1970s. Soon thereafter, the idea was abandoned when doctors said they couldn't withstand the force of daily life. Then second generation of artificial ankles were introduced in the '90s, and while they lasted longer than those of the 1970s, they never gathered momentum among doctors and specialists. Now doctors think the third time may be a charm, with the introduction of the next...

Is it possible to become one of the fastest runners in the world when you are a double leg amputee?This is one of the goals that inspires Ossur, an Icelandic group that was responsible for the prosthetics allowing double-amputee Oscar Pistorius to try to compete in the Beijing Olympics."What we should do is compared to the real body," said Ossur's Chief Executive Jon Sigurdsson. "And then we see that there is a long way to go. It is a very humbling experience to try to...

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- BridgePoint Medical, LLC's partner, Charlotte Orthotic and Prosthetic Center (COPC), announced today that Amy Street, CP has joined COPC's practitioner care team as Staff Prosthetist and will assume the responsibility for prosthetic care at the Charlotte facility. Amy is an ABC certified Prosthetist and Orthotist with 11 years of O&P experience, most recently as a Staff Prosthetist / Orthotist with OrPro in Maryland. She received a Bachelor of...

By Zoe Elizabeth Buck, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Aug. 1--Three years ago, Cassidy Posovsky was a three-legged German shepherd mix hobbling homeless around the Bronx. Thursday morning, he was a medical pioneer getting fitted with a cutting-edge prosthetic that could one day help thousands of veterans and others who lose limbs in trauma. If all goes well, Cassidy's artificial leg will fuse into his bone, and he should be on all fours in months -- paving the way for veterinary...

MIDDLETOWN, NY and LIVINGSTON, Scotland, July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Touch Bionics, developer of the world's first commercially available bionic hand, today announced that the i-LIMB Hand has won a 2008 da Vinci Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The da Vinci Awards recognize the most innovative developments and research in adaptive and assistive technology. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society understands well the difficulties people experience when faced with physical...

The Houston Business Journal recently announced that the Amputee and Prosthetic Center is the "Best Place to Work" among Houston-based companies with 1 to 100 employees. The Best Places to Work drew hundreds of nominations from various Houston companies that were impartially evaluated, scored and ranked; of these 40 were chosen to be honored as the best places to work. "Being named as the Best Place to Work in Houston this year after being named 2nd best last year is the pinnacle of our...

I am writing on behalf of a number of our constituents in Utah regarding prosthetic parity legislation. Eleven states have passed prosthetic parity legislation, and there has been a federal bill introduced in the House of Representatives (HR5615). We are hoping to raise awareness at the state level to help amputees living without adequate coverage regain their freedom. Dan Ignaszewski National advocacy specialist Amputee Coalition of America (c) 2008 Deseret News (Salt Lake City)....