Bionic Hand Allows User To Feel

Bionic technology is rather rapidly catching up to the way it is portrayed in countless science fiction movies and novels. The latest advance is a bionic hand that would give amputees the ability to touch and feel what they are touching with the mechanical hand.

There has already been reports of bionic advances that will come to great aid to their users. A new kind of bionic eye has just been approved by the FDA that is geared towards helping sufferers of retinitis pigmentosa.

Just before Christmas, a report surfaced that detailed a bionic exoskeleton that is coming to the aid of paralyzed people and allowing them to walk.

The Independent is reporting that this new bionic hand is the next generation of these kinds of bionic devices. This bionic hand will be attached to a patient later this year and will actually give the unnamed man in his 20s sensory perception through the device.

The Verge reports that this hand will work by actually connecting it to the user’s nervous system. The researchers who have come up the hand hope that will allow the wearer to control it like a regular hand and feel what it touches.

The bionic hand’s lead creator, Dr. Silvestro Micera, talked about the hand at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston saying:

“This is real progress, real hope for amputees. It will be the first prosthetic that will provide real-time sensory feedback for grasping. It is clear that the more sensory feeling an amputee has, the more likely you will get full acceptance of that limb. We could be on the cusp of providing new and more effective clinical solutions to amputees in the next year.”

Will the bionic hand be the next big thing in this technology? Will it lead to other bionic limbs acting similarly?