Remote creation of clinical-standard myoelectric trans-radial bypass sockets during COVID-19

To enable the progression of research during the COVID-19 lockdown, a novel remote method of creating clinical standard trans-radial bypass sockets was devised as a collaboration between an engineering team and a clinical research group. The engineering team recruited two able-bodied participants, marked areas of interest on the participant’s limb and captured limb geometry and electrode sites with a high definition optical scanner. The resulting 3D scan was modified to make electrode sites and areas of interest recessed and tactile. Models were 3D printed to scale and posted to the clinical team to manufacture the sockets. A modified lamination process was used, comprising plaster casting and rectifiying the model by hand. The recessed areas of the 3D printed model were used to guide the process. The bypass sockets were returned to the engineering team for testing. A simple electromyography (EMG) tracking task was performed using clinical electrodes to validate the skin-electrode contact and alignment. This paper demonstrates a validated method for remotely creating transradial bypass sockets. There is potential to extrapolate this method to standard socket fittings with further research.