Sci-Fi Revolution

Audiences the world over recall the famous “I am your father” scene from George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy. Face-to-face for the first time, Lord Vader slices off the hand of Luke Skywalker, his long-lost son. Saved from certain death through The Force, Luke is then treated for his injuries and fitted with a new, fully functional, electronic hand.

It’s the stuff of science fiction legend. Or is it?

Meet Touch Bionics’ i-LIMB Hand. Crafted by the Scotland-based developer of upper-limb prosthetics, the i-LIMB is the world’s first fully articulating and commercially available bionic hand.

The hand is manufactured with high-strength plastics and is controlled by a highly intuitive system that uses a traditional two-input myoelectric (muscle signal) to open and close the fingers — to look and act like a real human hand. The muscle signals are registered through electrodes that sit on the surface of the skin.

The Force indeed!

With its leading-edge electronics and mechanical engineering, the Touch Bionics hand, which has thus far been fitted to 370 patients, presents unprecedented potential to provide greater independence for its users. That potential recently garnered the i-LIMB and its engineers a place among winners of the 2008 da Vinci Awards.

Established in 2001 to showcase outstanding achievement in technologies, designs and disciplines that enhance personal mobility, the da Vinci Awards have become a launchpad of sorts for a number of such advancements.

Leslie Kota, vice president of marketing and development for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, whose Michigan Chapter began the awards, says DME inventions and innovations are a natural fit for the awards.

“Adaptive and assistive technologies can play an important role in helping people overcome their physical limitations,” Kota says, “and the purpose [of the da Vinci Awards] is to acknowledge the most innovative developments and research in the areas of adaptive and assistive technology.”

Chosen from among nominations sent from around the world, this year’s award winners — selected by a committee that includes individuals with MS — run the gamut from voice-activated technologies to a specialized bike. Some of the 2008 winners are large corporations, but Jim and Veach Breakwell will tell you that national and international companies didn’t receive all the honors.

“We’re actually only a two-man operation,” says Jim, who, with his cousin Veach invented the Brake-Well Wheelchair Braking System.

Inspired by the needs of a friend with MS, Jim, who lives in Baltimore, decided to approach Veach, a sheet metal and wire fabrication worker from Uniontown, Pa., about developing a system that would allow a wheelchair to be used both in its traditional sense and as a walker.

Three months after Jim came up with the idea, the Breakwells had a prototype for the Brake-Well, which ended up as a lightweight adaptation that is essentially a second set of brakes for wheelchairs. The device is helpful for the disabled and their caregivers worried about braking or stopping on inclines, such as those on building access ramps.

The pair then purposefully named their device as a play on words. “It was so catchy, we couldn’t avoid using it,” Jim laughs.

The initial idea took months of tweaking but finally paid off when Jim’s friend with MS, Shelley, began using the first model. Their invention, which costs less than $100 and will fit wheelchairs from a variety of top manufacturers, netted the cousins a spot on the winners’ stand next to Fortune 500 companies.

In addition to the i-LIMB Hand and the Brake-Well Wheelchair Braking System, the following products received honors Sept. 20 at the 2008 da Vinci Awards ceremony in Dearborn, Mich.:

• Creative Mobility, Project Mobility and Versa Trike: Experience and knowledge of the various physical limitations of people with disabilities led Creative Mobility to develop the Versa Trike, a three-wheeled, adaptive bike for people with limited mobility. The company was also honored for its Project Mobility, a nonprofit organization that travels through the United States providing adaptive cycling camps for children, adults, disabled veterans and newly injured soldiers from Iraq.
• Ford’s SYNC: Offers a voice-recognition interface to receive calls, send and receive text messages and control a variety of media players in an automobile. The mechanism can control both Bluetooth-enabled cell phones and Bluetooth or USB digital media devices in a safe, hands-free manner.
• Keyboard Communicator from Afforda Speech: The first swappable keyboard speech-generating device. Individuals with verbal communication difficulties who also need external specialized keyboards (e.g. large-print, large button, low-force keyboards, ergonomic keyboards, one-hand keyboards, etc.) can now have a portable text-to-speech solution without needing a desktop or notebook computer.
• Nimble Assessment Systems’ NimbleTools: A universally designed test delivery interface that increases access to test content for students with disabilities and special needs. NimbleTools assures access for students with physical disabilities who use any one of a variety of assistive/adaptive communication devices (e.g., switch mechanisms, sip-and-puff devices, Intellikeys, alternate mice, touchscreens, etc.), tailoring the accessibility tools based on individual need.
• Yamaha Motor Co.’s Pushrim Activated Power Assisted Wheelchair (PAPAW): An add-on wheel with motor and battery installed on a manual chair to transform it into a powered chair, PAPAW is a wheelchair option for those who have upper extremity joint degeneration, reduced exercise capacity, low strength or en-durance issues.

The compact, lightweight PAPAW is maneuverable and reduces fatigue while increasing the range of mobility for its user. PAPAW is sold by Sunrise Medical.

Past da Vinci Award winners have included Independence Technology’s iBot 4000, Otto Bock Healthcare’s C-Leg and Bruno’s Lift-Up Power Mobility Seat.

Proceeds from the awards, sponsored this year by the UAW-GM, benefit the National MS Society in its quest to help people address the challenges of living with MS.