Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have developed a system to track hand use in people with a prosthetic hand or patients who have had a hand transplant. The technology tracks movements in hands and arms and helps monitor how people use their hands in everyday life. Such data could help guide personalized treatment for patients and also allow physicians to track recovery and mobility in numerous conditions that can affect hand use, such as: B. Multiple sclerosis and stroke.
Losing a hand can make everyday tasks difficult, although researchers have developed a range of technologies and methods to help amputees, from robotic prosthetics to hand transplants. However, it is important to measure how well a particular approach works for patients in daily life in order to refine and personalize such treatments to achieve maximum impact.
One important parameter is measuring how much someone uses their prosthetic or transplanted hand compared to their other hand. To facilitate this, these researchers developed a system of motion sensors that attach to a person’s hands and upper arms. The sensors can then track hand and arm use over several days, providing data that would otherwise be difficult to collect accurately.
“We can take people to a clinic or lab and measure how they are doing with a prosthetic or hand transplant, but these observations are usually made under optimal and artificial conditions and therefore may not tell us exactly how people really function during their day-to-day lives said Scott Frey, a researcher involved in the study. “These sensors, which continuously record movements over several days as people go about their lives, have the ability to revolutionize treatments by providing real-world data that will help us develop personalized approaches to treating traumatic hand loss. “
So far, researchers have tested the devices on volunteers with prosthetics or hand transplants and tracked their movement for three days. “Most of the activities that a typical adult does require a fairly even load on both hands,” Frey said. “Over the course of a normal day, about 55% of people’s activities involve the dominant hand and 45% involve the non-dominant hand. Now we have evidence that experienced prosthetic wearers rely on their prosthetic hand for about 20% of daily activities and use their uninjured limb for the remaining 80%. Hand transplant recipients have a more balanced pattern of limb use that is closer to what we see in healthy adults, although not quite on the 55%/45% split.”
While this data appears to trend toward the benefits of a hand transplant, the researchers caution that the technique may not be for everyone, as risks of infection, a shortage of donors, and the side effects of long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs are all things to consider.
Study in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair: Greater and more natural use of the upper extremities in everyday life by ex-amputees versus prosthesis wearers
