“…they’ve made great strides in artificial legs, but a good arm has never been within their grasp.”
Here’s a very interesting article and video about the DEKA arm. I guess I hadn’t realized that my fake arm, which resembles the hook you see in the video about the DEKA arm, is the same basic design as the arms developed during World War II. What a dinosaur!
This is a great article in the Bismarck Tribune about a man who lost both arms in an accident. He now works as an occupational therapist, rigs up inventive ways of doing regular things, and makes funny jokes about losing his arms. I like this guy!
I was especially interested in the bit about how he couldn’t pick up his children as infants with two fake arms. Since I became a mom, I wear my fake arm much, much less. I hardly ever wear it around my daughter. A prosthetic arm is quite necessary to do some things, but with my little one it is just in the way.
It isn’t just about gay marriage (though that’s a much bigger deal). Iowa is also in the news this week with a bill requiring health insurance policies to cover prosthetics for those who suffered a catastrophic injury. I’m not sure where that leaves people like me who were born with limb deficiency, but it’s a start.
Check out one of TIME magazine’s top 50 inventions of 2008:
