Cochlear implants have restored basic hearing to some 220,000 deaf people, yet a microphone and related electronics must be worn outside the head, raising reliability issues, preventing patients from swimming and creating social stigma.
Now, a University of Utah engineer and colleagues in Ohio have developed a tiny prototype microphone that can be implanted in the middle ear to avoid such problems.
A British student who was paralysed in a horror car smash is walking again five years later thanks to a revolutionary bionic suit.
David Follett, 22, suffered a spinal-cord injury to his neck following the accident in which he was hit by a car as he strolled along Exmouth seafront in Devon on April 18, 2007.
Can we give ourselves super vision, super strength and super speed?
Science fiction is littered with the theme of upgrading the human body with machinery.
In the 1970s classic TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, the main character - astronaut Steve Austin - is horrendously injured in a test flight accident. He was a man “barely alive” but, as the title sequence explained, science could come to his rescue.
Injured soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fuelled bionics research in prosthetic limbs. A university in the US has developed one of the most advanced bionic arms with military funding. It has nearly as much dexterity as a natural arm, with independent finger movement.
It responds to the user’s muscles that remain in their residual limb. Muscles generate small electrical signals when they contract, these can be detected by sensors placed on the surface of the skin. The bionic arm uses these, so that contracting different muscles produces specific movement, such as opening or closing a fist.
On Monday, Kessler Foundation became the second rehabilitation research center in the U.S. to implement Ekso, a wearable, robotic battery-powered exoskeleton that allows wheelchair users with lower-extremity weakness to stand and walk.
“Kessler Foundation makes strategic investments in innovative technology that have the potential to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities,” said Rodger DeRose, president and chief executive officer of Kessler Foundation. “Our partnership with Ekso Bionics confirms our leadership in rehabilitation research.”
Technology has always strived to match the incredible sophistication of the human body. Now electronics and hi-tech materials are replacing whole limbs and organs in a merger of machine and man.
On February 14, Ekso Bionics delivered its first Ekso exoskeleton to the Craig Hospital in Denver. The Ekso is a battery-powered, wearable robot that is designed for paraplegics to help them stand up and walk.
When light hits Barbara Campbell’s eyes, it triggers no response in her retinas, and no signals flash up her optic nerves to her brain. A genetic disease killed off her retinas’ photoreceptor cells, leaving her completely blind by her 30s. But where her body failed her, technology rescued her. In 2009, at the age of 56, Campbell had an array of electrodes implanted in each eye, and she now makes her way through the world more confidently, aided by bionic vision.
In a warehouse that looks like a cross between a mad inventor’s garage and a climbing gym, a pair of mechanical legs hangs from the ceiling on ropes. With the quiet whir of four motors, one in each hip and knee, the legs take a step, then another and another. This is an exoskeleton walking suit, and it is taking the hundreds of thousands of steps that regulators demand to prove that it’s no mere toy but a reliable medical device, one that just might change the lives of people who thought they’d never again rise from a wheelchair.
On the grand scale of things, we know so very little about the brain. Our thick-headedness isn’t quite cosmological in scale — we really do know almost nothing about the universe beyond Earth — but, when it comes down to it, the brain is virtually a black box. We know that stimuli goes in, usually through one of our senses, and motor neurons come out, but that’s about it. One thing you can do with a black box, however, is derive some semblance of a working model through brute force testing.
Advanced Bionics (AB), the global leader in cochlear implant technology, announced today that it received approval in the United States and Canada for Neptune™*, the world’s first and only swimmable, waterproof sound processor. Intended for swimming and bathing, Neptune is designed to help cochlear implant recipients hear in and out of the water. Recipients using other products on the market remove their processor when they swim or bathe, which means they miss out on important safety instructions and opportunities for language development because they are not hearing during those times. Developed for all weather, terrain, ages and lifestyles, Neptune allows recipients to enjoy an abundance of water and sports activities thanks to its durable, waterproof design. Parents of pediatric recipients will appreciate the bonding and learning that comes with hearing during bath time, as well as the safety of hearing in the pool.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, your contact lenses are calling. Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully built and tested what may be the first-everTerminator-style heads-up display contact lens. For now, the lens displays only a single, well-focused pixel and the wireless power is only enough to give the appearance of constant illumination, but this is the first step toward, asresearchers describe it, building lenses that “may receive data from external platforms (e.g. mobile phones) and provide real-time notification of important events.”
HIS bionic ear has given the gift of hearing to hundreds of thousands in the past three decades, but Prof Graeme Clark still considers it a work in progress.
The Australian scientist is preparing to start work on making major improvements to the cochlear implant.
The 76-year-old, who admits to a “genetic inability to retire”, revealed his plans as he prepared to accept Australia’s most prestigious medical research prize, the CSL Florey medal.
Matthew Newbury spent last weekend learning to ride a bike – one of life’s milestones but hardly a truly momentous event for most. Matthew, however, is 30 years old and, having lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident 15 years ago, until recently believed he might never acquire this simple skill.
