Restoring Sensory Feedback Enables Real-Time Control of Prosthetic Hand [From the Field]

The experimentation also highlighted the importance of reactivating tactile feedback to enable the patient to use the robotic prosthesis with dexterity. On 5 February 2013, the results of the second major experimental step of the LifeHand project were unveiled in conjunction with the publication of a related research article in the international journal Science Translational Medicine [1]. The work is coauthored by a group of Italian and other European research centers: 1) Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, 2) Catholic University of Rome, 3) Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, 4) IRCSS San Raffaele La Pisana, 5) EPFL-Switzerland, 6) University of Freiburg-Germany, and 7) Aalborg University-Denmark. LifeHand2 is the natural evolution of the research that led to the 2008 success of LifeHand1. The patient was an Italian-Brazilian national, Pierpaolo Petruzziello, who had undergone the exact same amputation (left arm immediately below the elbow) as Dennis Aabo Sørensen, the subject of this second experimentation. Starting from the demonstration of the possibility of restoring fine motor control capabilities in amputees by exploiting learning processes based on sensory feedback, it is expected that LifeHand2 can trigger many new research developments in the field of robotic prostheses and robot-based rehabilitation and assistive solutions.