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Could 3D printing provide new solutions for disabled people?

9:09 AM PLD UIN Sunan Kalijaga 0 Comments

By Damon RoseBBC News, Ouch

Raul Krauthausen with his 3D-printed ramp

More from Ouch

Disabled people often need personalised equipment to help with their individual needs. Could 3D printing provide a cheap and efficient solution?

Disabled Berliner Raul Krauthausen bought himself a 3D printer a year ago, thinking that it might be fun to make iPhone cases and key chains. After a while he wondered if he could create something more useful for himself.

"I decided to print a ramp because I am a wheelchair user. I often have problems getting into places with just one step in front of the entrance. I thought it would be good if I could carry one with me on the back of my wheelchair, not too big and not too heavy."

Krauthausen taught himself by watching online tutorials. He created a portable pair of plastic chocks - textured on one side to prevent tyre slippage - to help him over occasional steps.

He says it needn't be a complete solution for it to be helpful: "I have to ask someone on the street to put the blocks in place but that's not a showstopper. Sitting in an electric wheelchair as I do, you're used to asking people for help."

The plastic printing materials cost Krauthausen 50 euros and each part of the ramp took 26 hours to print on his printer. In December he posted the resulting design file to 3D sharing site Thingiverse with the message: "This is my first prototype. Please feel free to print and to develop it. Any feedback is appreciated."

Krauthausen says that followers on Facebook did challenge him to build the same device with Lego: "I ordered 600 Lego bricks and my flatmate and I constructed the same ramps. We found that building it with Lego was much faster, it took only 30 minutes, and cost about the same price."

Only simple plastic objects can be printed on 3D consumer equipment and generally work well as prototypes. Some users of the Thingiverse site have uploaded design files with disabled people in mind. For instance, you can download a playing card holder, a pen-holding device or a right-angle spoon, all ready for printing.

One enthusiastic user is currently sharing a design for a white cane. Admitting to knowing little about the blind market, he or she says the diameter might be wrong - and it's also not the colour you might expect: "Please forgive my yellow 'white' cane. I just couldn't resist (and I'm running out of white)."

Accessible equipment is often obtained from disability professionals or specialist shops. Many complain that these can be unattractive, costly and don't always work very well.

More 3D printing projects

Other more ambitious disability projects include:

The Open Hand project prints bespoke artificial hands at a fraction of the price
The RSA Mine for Life award in 2012 was awarded to a project which prints devices to aid the sexual wellbeing of injured soldiers

Denise Stephens, founder of Enabled by Design, imagines that in the future, mainstream products could be made accessible by only partially customising them.

"My dexterity isn't good," says Stephens who has multiple sclerosis, "so it could be that buttons on a product could be more textured and so easier for me to press.

"I suppose I have a dream you could buy products online and, just before checking out, you could say what customised elements you'd like. They could be 3D printed and would be tailored to your needs."

Special equipment can often be expensive as demand is relatively small. Raul Krauthausen says: "It's better to be able to print a wheelchair cup holder and make it available for 10 euros." He suggests that currently you can find yourself paying something like 100 euros for a small piece of specialist equipment manufactured and sold in the old way.

Warwick University has been running a project at nearby Hereward College for people with "complex support requirements" to create their own assistive products.

Ollie Baskaran with the straw-holder he has designed and 3D-printed

Ollie Baskaran's straw-holder has allowed him to enjoy a drink independently

21 year-old student Oliver Baskaran, who has limited movement, described his difficulty drinking when out socialising: "When a bottle is quite full the straw comes out, it falls out when you tip it too." Thanks to his new printed "bung" which holds a straw firmly in the top of any size of bottle, Baskaran now takes it to the pub and can enjoy a drink independently.

"I had to get my head round it, I'm not used to this kind of thing but after five sessions I started to get the hang of it," says Baskaran.

"With the design software, you can move it around, look at it from different angles, zoom in, zoom out to tweak, smooth up edges. A full 3D view."

Baskaran says that without this technology he would have to find a specialist to make him things, which could take a long time. The 3D printing method took "an hour to make and minutes to print out".

Follow @BBCOuch on Twitter and on Facebook, and listen to ourmonthly talk show

Sumber: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-25947021

Teknologi Bantu

Harapan Baru Bagi Difabel

6:05 PM PLD UIN Sunan Kalijaga 0 Comments

James Meikle and agency
The Guardian, Wednesday 5 February 2014 22.43 GMT

The bionic hand sends electrical signals to allow Dennis Sorensen to feel what he is touching. Photograph: Patrizia Tocci

A man who lost his left hand in a fireworks accident has described how he could feel things that he had not been able to feel for more than nine years after testing a bionic replacement with a sense of touch.

Dennis Sorensen, from Denmark, felt the shape and texture of objects during a month's trial in Rome of the robotic hand developed by Swiss and Italian scientists. "The sensory feedback was incredible," said the 36-year-old, whose experience may help pave the way for artificial "feeling" limbs. "When I held an object I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square."

The artificial hand picks up electrical signals from artificial tendons controlling the movement of its fingers, which are sent down fine wires to four electrodes implanted in sensory nerves in the upper arm.

"This is the first time in neuroprosthetics that sensory feedback has been restored and used by an amputee in real-time to control an artificial limb," said Silvestro Micera, of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, Switzerland, who leads the Life Hand 2 project.

Scientists hope they can eventually streamline the equipment into a more discreet prosthetic using miniaturised equipment under the skin.

The experiment detailed in the journal Science Translational Medicinetook place in January last year at the Gemelli hospital in Rome. Safety rules for trials meant the electrodes had to be removed from Sorensen's arm after a month but scientists think they would have continued to function without harm for several years.

They said the hand had allowed him to experience "almost natural" sensory feelings comparable to those he felt in his remaining hand. He had distinguished hard, medium and soft objects and recognised basic shapes such as the cylinder of a bottle and the sphere of a baseball.

The team plan to do further trials with more patients, saying these could open up the chances of far more dexterous artificial hands, even though it could be years for the equipment to be miniaturised and available for everyday use. Since his accident, Sorensen had been wearing a conventional prosthesis that detects muscle movement in the stump of his arm, allowing him to open and close the hand but he was unable to feel objects he had grasped. "I was more than happy to volunteer for the clinical trial, not only for myself, but to help other amputees as well," he said.

Alastair Ritchie, a lecturer in biomaterials and bioengineering at Nottingham University, welcomed the "very interesting work" taking research on upper-limb prosthetics "into the next stage".

"Our hands are one of our principal interfaces with the world, and in recent years we have seen real advances. This technology would enable the user to know how firmly they are gripping an object, which is vital for handling fragile objects – imagine picking up an egg without any feeling in your fingers. Another exciting aspect is the ability of the human brain to learn, allowing the user to become more proficient as he gains experience in using the prosthesis."

However, rigorous wound care would be needed to prevent infection, including from electrodes embedded next to the peripheral nerves and wires running through the skin.

David Gow, director of rehabilitation engineering services and bioengineering at NHS Lothian, said: "Although based on a single case study, the results look like a practical surgical-based method of delivering spatial and force information from a robotic hand's sensors back to the user to allow him fine control of force and to gain some knowledge of the shape and stiffness of the object in his artificial grasp.

"This opens up exciting possibilities for artificial-limb users and takes us a step closer to a clinically viable man-machine interface."

SUMBER:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/05/bionic-hand-limb-sense-touch-artificial?CMP=fb_gu

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