In the UK, more than 11 million people live with a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability, according to government statistics. More than one in four disabled people, meanwhile, say that they don’t have choice and control over their daily lives.
For those who need it, a bionic limb can cost up to £80,000 and take three months to make. However, by using 3D scanning and printing, a Bristol-based start-up reckons it can provide an amputee with a bionic hand for less than £2,000 in less than a week.
Using the latest in advanced robotic prosthetics, Open Bionic’s prototype hands generate movement in the fingers in response to electrodes connected to muscles in an amputee’s arm.
“It’s an intuitive way to operate the hand and it give them (amputees) back a freedom of movement that they had previously lost or were born without in some cases”, Joel Gibbard, the company’s founder, has said.