A 45-year-old woman in Sweden has
undergone surgery to permanently implant a robotic hand that she
will be able to use on a daily basis in a world first, sources
said Tuesday.
The robotic hand was built thanks to the DeTOP European
project led by Christian Cipriani of the Pisa Scuola Superiore
Sant'Anna's Institute of Bio-robotics.
Experts are working to prepare two more operations, in Italy
and in Sweden, the sources said.
The Swedish woman, whose right hand was amputated in 2002, is
following a programme of rehabilitation to regain strength in
the muscles of her forearm, which were weakened after the
amputation, and, by using virtual reality, is learning to
control the robotic hand, researchers and scientists told
reporters on Tuesday.
In the next few weeks, they said, she will be able to go home
and use the new hand every day.
"Thanks to this human-machine interface that is so accurate,"
Cipriani said, "and thanks to the skill and degree of
sensitivity of the artificial hand, we expect that in the space
of a few months the woman will regain motor and perceptive
functions very similar to those of a natural hand".
The surgical operation took place in Goethenburg, at the
Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
The operating surgeons were Richard Brånemark and Paolo
Sassu.
They implanted into the forearm (radius and ulna) of the
woman titanium structures as a bridge between bones and nerve
endings on the one side and the robotic hand on the other, the
scientists said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
