mumbai Mirror Bureau Posted
On Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 03:07:39 AM Two New Zealand inventors have
produced what they claim are the world’s first robotic legs to help paraplegics
walk again. The bionic legs were road-tested publicly for the first time by
23-year-old Hayden Allen who was told five years ago he would never
walk again after being paralysed from the chest down in a motorcycle accident. Allen said the
experience of being able to stand up and walk when strapped into his robotic
legs was fantastic and he felt like a normal human being again.
Before Rob Summers had
a spinal cord injury, he was a pitcher for the Oregon State Beavers with a win
in the College World Series under his belt. He dreamed of being a major league
baseball player. Then, on July 12, 2006, a car veered into his driveway and hit
him as he stood outside his house. At 20, he was paralyzed from the neck down.
Though he had some feeling below the waist, doctors said he would never walk
again.
A decade ago, that may
have been the end of the story. But Summers, along with three other young men
with spinal cord injuries, have been given a new treatment--an epidural
stimulator implanted over the spinal cord--that could change the way we think
about paralysis. All of these patients, once completely paralyzed from at least
the chest down, can now move their legs. The treatment, described in a study
published today in the research journal Brain, is the result of research
from scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA, and the Pavlov Institute
of Physiology, with funding from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
and the National Institutes of Health.
It seems as if people in
wheelchairs may be getting a little help from the military these day. A Defense
Department program to develop super-human soldiers has led private company Ekso
Bionics to create a wearable robot that enables paraplegics to walk. Ekso
Bionics’ Iron Man-style exoskeletons have been quietly tested over the past
year, at 10 different rehab centers and the results have been amazing!
The exoskeleton in
development is a wearable suit with exterior robot components that allows a
wheelchair user to stand up and walk. It could be a life changing technology
not only for soldiers injured in battle, but for people with spinal cord
injuries, multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, lower extremity weakness
or paralysis due to neurological disease or spinal injury.
Ekso Bionics has a goal
of making an exoskeleton that is as easy to wear as a pair of jeans, and with
more than 2 million people in wheelchairs that is going to translate to a lot
of suits.
Ekso Bionics CEO Eythor
Bender was quoted as saying
“Making a robot itself
is difficult enough. To add that to the body and put it on like a pair of jeans
is a whole other level,”
The exoskeleton has four
electric motors that replicate a person’s hips and knees. Fifteen sensors are
networked with a computer that sits on the user’s back and acts as a “brain.” A
battery pack provides four hours of endurance.
It is not as simple as
giving all people in wheelchairs an exoskeleton. A candidate must have the
upper body strength to transfer from a wheelchair to a regular chair and to
balance with crutches in order to use the exoskeleton.
It is not cheap to use
an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton currently costs $150,000, which is a bargain
for the ability to walk.
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