Prosthetic Limbs

Prosthetic limbs have been around for thousands of years, but could they eventually become superior to organic appendages? In this episode, Allison and Robert break down the latest -- and future -- developments in prosthetic technology.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Alison Madamouth, the science editor how stuff flix
dot com. And this is Robert Lamb science We're right
or how stuff works dot com. Tell me, Allison, have

(00:23):
you ever secretly wished you had a prosthetic arm, like
a fake you know, like a robotic hand or anything. Um,
until this afternoon, I might have answered you with a no.
But there's some pretty cool prosthetic devices out there and
a little research into Oscar Pistorius. Have you have you
heard about this guy? You probably did? Oh, this is

(00:45):
the blade Runner, right, yeah, yeah, he's awesome. Um, and
it's funny too because I actually do think about prosthetic
limbs when I'm when I'm running, that's when I've most
thought about it, and I think, you know, wow, I'm
really grateful to have my legs and running and gosh,
my legs are tired, and maybe I should go get
a blade Runner like Oscar, Like maybe you should. You
should lose your legs and replace them with with super

(01:07):
high tech prosthetics like a cheetah. That thing is awesome. Hey,
just so you guys know, we are going to be
talking about prosthetic limbs today, and we know that there
are a lot of people out there who have lost
a limb, and we don't take that lightly, but we
will be talking pretty candidly about it today. Yeah, And uh,
like I have I have this kind of mixed thing
about it because as a kid, I loved the idea

(01:29):
of like having like a robot hand or something because
it was all over the place. You know. It's like
you're watching Pirate movies and they have peg legs, or
you're watching like he Man cartoons and it's kind of
lockjaw and he had like this big robot arm and
and so you know, it's and I still find a
lot of that stuff really cool. You know. It's all that,
you know, a billion dollar man type of thing, you know, um,
and you know, cyborgs and making somebody stronger through technology,

(01:53):
h and impervious. You know. But then at the same time,
I like, I'll think about it, you know, I'll be
like typing or something like, man, if I lost a
hand would really suck, Like how would I move my mouse?
You know? Um, you know, and well you might not
use that fictionality with some of the technologies available today.
That's right, and we're going to talk about some of them,
but can we talk about Oscar for a second blade runner? Yeah, yeah,

(02:14):
we were talking about him. So just a reminder for
those of you guys who don't remember him. He used
the sprinter who was on track to make the South
African Olympic team. And according to a Wired story by
Josh mqugh, this was an Oscar story. He was born
with two toes on each tiny foot, and each leg
was missing its fibula. And the fibula is that long,
thin bone that connects your calf muscle and it forms

(02:35):
outside the ankle. So they were pretty bad shape. Yeah,
it was missing actually, So it was pretty much a
situation of either keep these and use a wheelchair for
the rest of your life, or double amputee and sort
of start from scratch, put some prosthetics on there and
you know, and learn how to use them at an
early age, right, So Oscar's parents obviously went with the

(02:57):
latter choice, and at each one and a off. According
to a Wired arter mceugh, the Storiers took his first
steps on a set of fiber last pigs, and now
he's pretty darned fast on them, just to give you
an idea of how fast he can cover nine point
four meters per second on them. Yeah, and if you
haven't seen a picture of these, I mean, do have
do a search for it, because it's it's really awesome.

(03:18):
I think either this guy or a guy with a
pair of these showed up in the first season of
My Name is Earl, No kidding. Yeah, he like runs
around on him and it looks awesome because they have
this like they've been backwards and they're like springing in
to the untrained eye, they look just like a curved
piece of metal, you know, and not something that's like
ultra you know. It looks a little bit like a
hockey like a hockey stick. And yeah, imagine a guy

(03:39):
like running on like hockey sticks and except just having
like this awesome spring to his step and just like
really fast. It's it's kind of amazing. Yeah, and they're
pretty expensive too for all that spring and power. There
between fifteen thousand and eighteen thousand, uh per per cheetah
per blate. So stories is fate for the two thousand
and eight Olympics was that he eventually was cleared and

(03:59):
he was going to be able to run in the
Beijing Olympics if you qualified. Um, but he in fact didn't.
He didn't he didn't make the Olympic qualifying standard in
the four hundred. But this is kind of interesting. I
was thinking about it. I mean, Oscar is so fast
that I was wondering, you know, with these types of
cheetah blades and and these type of prosthetic devices, could

(04:21):
we eventually see the Paralympics, you know, breaking records that
the Olympic athletes camp. I don't know, it's worth it's
worth thinking about. You know. It's the as the technology
improves and we we get we're better able to to
replicate you know, the use we would get out of
an actual limb, you know, stands the reason we might
reach the point where we could you know, improve upon

(04:42):
the design to certain degree and improve they have. Prosthetic
devices have come a long way. Yeah, there was you know,
there was a time long ago where have you lost
your arm to a you know, a savor tooth tiger
and whatnot. Then I don't know about a savor tooth.
I'm not sure about the crossover. They would say, Willy
mammoth bits your arm off you know, you wouldn't be
able to really get a prosthetic but but they really

(05:04):
started popping up pretty early in history. Did they found
one on a mummy? Didn't they like a fake toe? Yes?
They did. They found a three thousand year old fake
toe on an Egyptian noblewoman. Yeah. And oh, and tell
me about the Roman dude. I will tell you about
the Roman dude. The Roman dude was a guy named
Marcus Surgis, and he was a Roman general who lost
his right hand while he was battling in the one
of one of the Panick Wars, and Marcus ordered a

(05:28):
replacement hand made of iron to hold his shield, and
he he got his Roman self back out there on
the battlefield. That was a tough guy. Yeah, and this
is this ties into the whole like childhood, like you know,
love of the idea of prosthetic limbs. Like here's a
guy that's so awesome. He like goes out and he's,
you know, he's a he's this you know, action killing machine.
And then like they take his hand and he's like
I can just you know, slap a shield on there

(05:50):
and I'm good to go. So that's that's pretty impressive.
So one thing is that Old Marcus may have been
buried with his amputated limb, because people used to believe
that if you lost a limb while you were on earth,
that you should be buried with it, because otherwise you
might be limbless in the afterlife as well. It kind
of like with the mummies in the Coptic jars with
their organs and them. But of course, what road group

(06:12):
in history was renowned for their prosthetics. That would be
the pirates indeed, and we'll go ahead, sorry, Oh, it's
just gonna point out that in the Atlanta area there's
actually an amputee Prosthetic clinic Um and they have a
they have a pirate on the sign, like a cartoon pirate,
and their their phone number. I probably can't give out

(06:34):
the first part of it, but it's like, you know, like,
you know whatever, whatever, fake leg you know. Okay, So
that's direct and to the point. Yeah, and and interesting
too because it's like, you know, they seem to have
a real sense of humor or you know, about the
use of prosthetics and love pirates. So it's interesting. Yeah.
So back in the back in the olden days of
wood and metal and leather with the were the materials

(06:55):
of choice for for your prosthetic limbs. But now we've
we've become kind of high tech because we're talking a
little bit about with oscar. So let's talk about some
of the newer ones. And meanwhile, we should probably give
you a little run through through the basic parts of
a prosthetic limb. Yeah, these are the basics. Um, you're
gonna want. You're gonna want a pie one, you sure will,
because it's like the heart of the prosthetic. Yeah, this

(07:17):
is I mean, this is like the skeleton, internal frame.
You know, this is replacing the bone that was lost essentially, right,
it's providing the structural support. And you used to be
often made from metal rods. Nowadays you might be looking
at a lighter carbon fiber type composite. And then you
have the socket, right, And so the socket is the
part of the prosthetic device that meets the residual limb

(07:40):
or the limb stump as the case maybe. And a
good few here is obviously going to be critical because
you don't want that thing rubbing against you the wrong way.
I mean, come on, yeah, yeah, So good fit here
is really critical. And then lastly, you have the suspension system,
you gotta have something to attach it to your body
or make sure it stays on. And this could be
you know, whether it's just a suction which is pretty cool, um,

(08:01):
or you might have some sort of harness system or
a strap at belt or sleeve and uh, they can
be pretty inconspicuous. Yeah, um, but yeah, I guess there's
the strap ones are kind of the old model, right right,
and I think this section is is more current. Um,
but let's talk about some of the super cool ones.
Enough with the definition stuff, let's set to So why
don't we have such a need for this? I mean,

(08:22):
war definitely, um. I mean you have somebody rolling over
a roadside bomb and maybe they actually survive that incident,
but they lose a limb. In fact, a lot of
soldiers are coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq and uh
theaters around the world, and you know they've lost a
limb or they've lost multiple limbs. And then you have
areas the world where you still have a lot of
land mines and unexploded unexploded ordinance. So um, you know

(08:44):
people are losing limbs sadly to that, right, and then
you throw an accidents with machinery or fireworks, and you
have a pretty major need in both developing and developed countries.
Now this is something that I was really I found
really exciting. And this is they called this ostio integration,
right and uh and this is a apparently titanium can
be made to to actually fuse with the bone. Oh right,

(09:07):
I was heading about that in popular mechanics. Yeah. Yeah,
so this is like the ultimate you know, talking about
anchoring systems, Like if you can actually anchor it to
the bone, um, you know, in a very you know,
firm manner, then then that's that's better than any of
these methods. Um. Yeah. And so far they've used it
in a like dental um and facial implants, and of
course now it's being considered for limb prosthetics. Yeah. Well

(09:29):
they used it on German shepherd named Cassidy. Indeed they did.
And it looks like North Carolina State University is going
to try us six more of these operations in two
thousand ten that involve asso integration on impute dogs and
possibly an aweso lot. It's I mean, it's amazing like
some of the animal prosthetically come up with which on
all one level. It's like it's like this is the

(09:50):
place to test you know, technologies, you know, because animals
are really bad about like losing limbs. You know how
many three legged cats and dogs you see all the time, right,
and it never see to make a darn bit of difference. Well,
they don't really generally, they don't seem to care. Yeah,
I'm good. Yeah, but you sent me a picture of
the elephant with the prosthetic yeah, from the tie Burmese border. Um. Yeah,

(10:15):
I lost the leg and they created this this prosthetic
leg for an elephant that was pretty pretty amazing. And
we also saw when we were like when we were
researching this of the bill. Oh yeah, the Romanian start
name Uzonka sus Lanka's Lanka got a processus. Yeah, like
somebody had been mean to these birds, to this bird
and damaged its bill, and they created a prosthetic bill

(10:37):
so it can function. More recently, I saw Dean Cayman's one.
Did you see the video on the Colbert Show or yeah, yeah,
with that awesome hand right, very high five Colbert with
a this prosthetic arm. Yeah. So this was the founder
of first Dean Cayman and it's pretty cool. Yeah, as
far as I know, it's it's not available, but the
technology is is pretty advanced. So this arm can pick

(10:59):
up a raisin or a grape on the table without
destroying it. So it has dexterity, it has uh those
fine motor skills down and Caman actually got the request
from DARPA. UM. DARPA said, hey, we want the vets
to come back and have better technologies available to them. UM,
and MPG technology really isn't there right now. So Caman
has been working on this for a while and he

(11:19):
wound up taking it down to the Walter Reed Military
Hospital and testing it up. The arm consense pressure and
temperature and basically the more pneumatic pressure you put on it,
the more it's attached. Cool. Some of that technology, um,
you know, was explored in the in the space industry
for space gloves the big thing because if you know,
if you have this huge thick layer between yourself and

(11:42):
say sensitive you know, equipment on a satellite you're trying
to repair, you know, you know, it's like trying to
play piano when you know, kitchen mits or something. Yeah. Right,
So so the idea here is, you know, create gloves
that can sense those things and can transfer those back
to the wear right in case you're just sparing. You know,
it sounds like a lot of these technologies aren't available. Well,
some of them are actually, um there are a lot

(12:04):
of companies operating the space, and some of these cutting
edge prosthetics are already available. So there's one device that
I read about called pro Digits, and it's made by
a Scottish company, um by the name of Touch Bionics.
And this particular device can replace any or all fingers
on your hand, and it comes with this like tiny
little motor and a gearbox that's founded at the base

(12:25):
and they're commercially available. Okay, so here's the thing. Big
cost sixty dollars to seventy five dollars and that's going
to include fitting and occupational therapy. My question is, I
wonder if the Veterans Administration would cover this. I mean,
how much is that? How much of that cost is
going to be covered for an amputee? You know, how
much are we how much is you know the government

(12:45):
can contribute towards that. Yeah, so it seems like it's
a little price you still well, but I mean it's
it's you know it' kind of like a pr thing.
You know, it's like you're gonna convince people to join
the army when you know, they see people with missing
limbs everywhere that if everybody's got really you know, awesome prosthetics,
it's probably not even gonna be visible. And if you know,
and if it is visible, you'll say, hey, they really

(13:05):
take care of those guys after they took one for
the team. Right, And just to emphasize the motions on
this particular pro digit device, I mean, you can write
with it. I read one thing where the guy said
that his handwriting was in facted better than it was before,
so he was very pleased with this. All some of
us have really bad handwriting. So I mean, would you
include yourself? Yeah? Yeah. One thing I found really interesting

(13:30):
about about amputees is apparently about half of them, according
to a two tho article on the US Navy website,
suffer from um phantomal impain. Right, So this is pain
that feels like it's coming from a body part that's
no longer they're according to the Mayo Clinic. And according
to the clinic, this type of pain was once considered psychological.

(13:50):
You know, people, I don't know about that. But now
we figured out that these um sensations originate in the
spinal cord in the brain. And I read a really
cool New Yorker article about this a wild back, and
it was profiling a behavioral neurologist by the name of
A Villa Yaner Rama Chandron. Apologies to Dr rama Chandron
if I messed up your name. And he was working
on this phantom limp pain problem and he came up

(14:12):
with something called mirror therapy. Oh yeah, I've seen some
stuff about this. Yeah, right, so we know that phantom
limpain can be pretty cute, and uh so the neual
just had this idea to use mirror therapy. And what
this involves is that you hold up a mirror and
say you're missing a leg, and you hold up a
mirror next to your leg, and so it appears as

(14:34):
if you have two legs. For some reason, this UM
this helps out with your brain and the pain that
you're experiencing, and it seems to work, or at least
it reduces the pain too tolerable levels, and in some
people it may reduce the pain entirely. That's pretty cool.
I mean, it's pretty innovative and a really simple therapy
that could be available to a lot of people. Who

(14:54):
do you need it? So we talked about phantom limpain.
I want to talk about something called apo to no ophelia.
Have you heard of this before today? Yeah? Yeah, this
is when I've read about a while back. This is
where you have this uh, this compulsion or even a
desire to amputate part of your body. Right right. So
there's a John Hopkins psychologist back in nineteen seven called

(15:17):
John Money. How awesome is that name? It's funny, especially
if you know he had a doctoral degree and he
could call himself doctor Money. Yeah. I never understand when
people have those weird names, like if like Dennis get
names like Dr Payne, like you know, I would consider
changing it. Yeah, yeah, or at least fellow with the way.
Did you ever see that Seinfeld with the practologist. Yeah?

(15:40):
What was his name? That's what I'm thinking of right now.
But anyway, um appa time Nophelia was also called the
body integrity identity disorder and also ampute identity disorder, and
it was submitted for inclusion in the d s M five.
Remember the DSM five. It's like the mental health Bible
where all the mental health illnesses get classified. Yeah, if

(16:02):
I remember correctly, this is one that, like some interpretations
of this, at least with some some people who suffer
from it, it sometimes stems from being like a really
high pressure situation where they feel like they need to
It's almost like you're you're expecting a lot of me,
but you would expect less of me if I was
missing a hand before, I have a compulsion to remove
set a hand. So I was sort of thinking a

(16:24):
similar to transgender folks, you know, along the lines of
feeling illinies in your own body, and then once you
remove a limb, you know, it's sort of you become yourself.
May you become at peace with yourself? It's I I
just it kind of blows my mind um to to
voluntarily seek out in operation where you might I want
to get rid of a limb. But there's a huge

(16:45):
black market for it, and of course the Internet has
a looted all sorts of people seeking these kinds of
operations too, So it's like a can dude on Craig's List.
It will come and chop your hand off if you
well know. Because obviously doctors have some have some legal
issues with but there was a doctor that I bait about.
I believe in Scotland he performed to such operations and
he said that these operations were some of the most

(17:06):
satisfying he performed in his life because he really feelt
like he was helping these people to become more comfortable
with themselves. I mean, I, having never experienced this particularly disorder,
I can't understand the compulsion, but I believe that it
must be a very strong compulsion. How could it not be,
I don't know, I see, I can't imagine how it
seems like that kind of thing would keep going to
be kind of like surgical addiction. You know. It's like

(17:28):
it's people are never happy with anything. You know. It's like,
you know, somebody gets the you know, an Xbox three sixty,
they're gonna want to p S three or something. You know.
It's like so it's like you lose one hand. I mean,
how is that going to make the person happy? Or
are they gonna have to lose another hand? Now? I
don't know. I'm always wanting more. So It's like if
there's a dude out there that like cutting his hand
off makes him happy for the rest of his life.

(17:49):
Like I can't think of anything else in life that
like does that for anybody? You know, like sheer happiness
for that one operational. I mean, if it works, then
God bless him. But I have my doubts. Yeah, well,
so I'm just saying I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to cut my hand off, just in
case you're wondering. I wasn't. Well, because you need him

(18:10):
for typing all of this, I do. Yeah, but of
course you could. You could type with your new prosthetic device.
So yeah, I'm thing to be like a hunting packs.
It would just be like one finger you hunting packed.
Oh lord, that's so slow, I wandered producer Jerry huntson
Packs producer Jerry. Oh, producer, Jerry, you said pretty Sue, Jerry,

(18:31):
Like pretty ser Jerry, You've just forgotten about it because
we can't see her anymore. It still sounds like you said,
it's the new headphones. I'm hearing pretty Sue Jerry. Well,
it sounds kind of like a pimp or something, you know. Yeah,
so listen, if you're not going to get a prosthetic limb,
you could always get a hand transplant. Would you be
interested in one of these? Um? Yeah, I was missing

(18:54):
a hand and someone was like, we can give you
another hand. Then I would what would you choose, Which
would you choose fetic in a real hand, My current
self would choose a real hand, my like ten year
old self, which is like a robotic hand with lasers.
So you might be interested to know a little bit
about the current state of hand transplants. And I learned
about them courtesy of Emory Healthcare, which is here in Atlanta.

(19:16):
So the technical name is composite tissue allow transplantation, and
that just means the transplantation of limbs and other intact
body parts. And this is a really complicated process, right,
because there's a lot of stuff to reattach right right,
I mean you're talking about bits of bone that may
have been shattered. You're talking about connective tissue that's not
in good shape. Maybe it's kind of mangled. Um, So

(19:37):
it's yeah, it is extremely complicated, and it can be
a really long surgery. And then perhaps you may have
to deal with immunosuppressive issues, and so you're gonna be
on immuno suppressive medication. I shouldn't say perhaps you will
be on immuno suppressive medication. Yeah, the first hand transplant
was performed back in nine in Ecuador, again to a sailor.
Sailor got the transplant and you had to have it

(19:58):
amputated two weeks after surgery because you know, his his
body rejected it. And then the next hand transplant was
performed in France in n And I'm wondering a little
bit from this research if France isn't kind of interested
in this whole transplant sphere because they were also the
folks who did the face transplant. Member. Yeah. Yeah, they're
making they're making leaps and bounds over there. I mean,

(20:19):
it's it's all I think, just awesome. I mean, I
just love the idea that, you know, someone if they
lose something like that, they would be able to get
it back or at least get you know, something back
that's made of flesh and not plastic, right, right, although
there are some good plastic options out there, totally right. So, um,
a couple of other interesting transplants that have occurred. There

(20:41):
was a uterus transplant, yeah, a couple of transplants involving knees,
and there was one that even involved a trichia. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
I have an interesting prosthetic You may remember this, but
an Ignoble Prize was awarded to an effort to create
prosthetic testicles for dogs. I forgot about that, right, so

(21:02):
they could be imbued with ERA. Yeah, which again this
is like back to the whole thing that dogs are
fine if they lose a leg, and if you can
get a dog neuter like you should, um, then dog's
gonna be all right, you know, Dog's not you know,
this is all the owner like thinking, oh, my dog
doesn't have testicles? How can I live with this? You know?
And and that's why I want an Ignoble Prize because

(21:22):
it's just like why why are you even wondering? Why
are you even coming up with this? You know, Well,
surely if they can have kitty wigs, they can have
a set of fake a dog. And if a Ford
truck can have them, then certainly the genuine articles should
be able to come back as well, right right, So
I think that about raps it up for deep dive
into prosthetic devices today, and we hope you've got an interesting,

(21:43):
not as deep a dive as you can get on
the website. Be sure to check out our article about
prosthetic limbs and actually we have a we have a
few other articles to just just put in, like prosthetic limbs,
and you'll get a couple of different things on the
house Stuff Works website about this kind of technology. Yeah yeah,
so listener Millan want to share today, all right, So

(22:07):
I gotta get an email from Eric, and Eric was
writing about the business of compost and yeah, we that
compost podcast got a lot of confess Yeah. Yeah, it
seems like a lot of a lot of composting folks
out there, so that's cool. Eric writes, you mentioned in
your compost episode that you shouldn't compost your own business
and businesses and quotes, and by business we mean business. Yeah,

(22:31):
so well this is true for Pooh, it's worth noting
that urine is actually a great additive for composts. So
he goes on to expol the benefits of all that nitrogen,
and he writes, it's probably easier for the gentleman composters
out there to p into the compost than it is
for the ladies, and of course you need a certain
amount of privacy in your ear to make it happen.

(22:52):
Good point, Eric, and your neighbors will also probably be
happier if you don't vail your secret compost ingredient when
you start sharing the produce from your veggie garden. Indeed,
and lastly, Eric says, however, you may want to avoid
this technique if you're composting in the kitchen. Again, good point, Eric.
We thank you for that and your insight into the
the com posting matter. And we also had a good

(23:13):
one from Arizona Andrew in Arizona, Andrew writes that he
works for caterine company and he has a ton of
food that would otherwise be thrown in the trash. Now
I take it home and make a lovely, lovely soil
from it. And he also attached a picture of his
seven year ards on Brady, which I thought so adorable. Photos.
Yeah uh. And he writes, thanks for podcast. The kids

(23:33):
and I love listening. Well, we love you writing, so
thanks Andrew. In one last correction from Gary, we can
just call him Galaxy Gary, because Gary writes that I
want to remind you that the galaxy is the large
is not the largest structure in the universe. Uh. In fact,
galaxies are part of galaxy clusters, which are made up
of many galaxies that are gravitationally related to one another.
Thank you Gary, and we we discussed galaxies and galaxy

(23:56):
clusters in our podcast about how Galaxies Are World and
of course we're all over them on Facebook and Twitter. Two.
You can find us on Facebook on stuff in the
Science Lab or our handle on Twitter is the lab stuff. Yeah.
So come check us out and if you have any
stories you want to share, the prosthetics or anything else,
send us an email at science stuff at how stuff

(24:16):
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