Even with today’s most advanced prosthetic limbs, amputees still struggle to perform certain basic tasks. But the bionic arm made by Deka, the R&D firm founded by inventor Dean Kamen, is nearly as dexterous as the real thing. Nicknamed for the cybernetic hand in Star Wars, the Luke Arm is the first prosthesis that allows a person to make multiple movements, such as rotating the wrist and opening the hand, at once.
“Ten minutes after putting it on, people are able to pick things up,” says Stewart Coulter, the Luke Arm project manager. “Our office is littered with things that people have built with it.” In a clinical trial, 90 percent of the 36 participants were able to do previously impossible tasks, such as unlocking a door or using chopsticks.
Electrodes on the skin near the attachment site pick up the electrical impulses signaling muscle contractions and send them to a computer in the prosthesis. The processor translates these messages into motion of the integrated elbow, wrist, and hand. Users coordinate complex movements with a joystick-like sensor on their shoe.
“It works the way the patient thinks,” says Chuck Hildreth Jr., who lost his arms in a work accident more than 30 years ago and has been testing the prototypes since 2008. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the arm in May. Deka hasn’t announced a date for its commercial release or a price, but when the Luke Arm hits the market, Hildreth says he’ll be first in line to buy one. DEKA
