I don’t want to sound like I am about to save the world but something has been of a burden lately to me. Have you heard of prosthetists and orthotics? Well these are medical personnel thats takes care of humans with problems with their limbs. Prior to last year, I didn’t own anything about these set of persons until my relocation to the western part of our country where I met a lady and got close to her.
On relating with her, I got to know about her profession and she said she studied prosthesis and orthotics. First it was a tongue tieing word for me as I tried to get conversant with it. It was then she opened me up to the world of artificial limbs. Have you seen amputees who have to walk with artificial limbs? Yes, it’s their job to manufacture and couple those limbs for these individuals and train them on how to start using them. While this is not an easy job, the kind of tales she tells me of her experiences with people and the kind of things people pass through is so heart breaking.
She had told me of several of the patients who come to the clinic where she works and the ordeal they go through. One who has two hands and legs would not appreciate what Life has brought. She told me of one of them that lost his two arms from above the elbow was amputated. What happened? This guy was an electrician doing well for himself and he was called to fix a faulty electrical pole in an army barrack. While he was doing that, he got electrocuted.
The people in the barracks thought he was dead and they used a stick to hit him down from the pole without any soft landing arrangements. When he was hit down, it happened that he wasn’t dead. He was rushed to the hospital but his two arms had to be amputated why? The impact of the landing on the ground when he was hit down from the electric pole broke his arms. What kind of stupid thing was that? When I heard of this I felt so bad.
Why am I writing all these? She went ahead to say that it’s better loosing a leg than the hand especially when it’s above the elbow. She said the prosthetic legs are far better than the arms. The prosthetic arms are so heavy and almost near to useless yet they are very expensive and are as thrice as expensive as a prosthetic leg. The people spend so much and yet have no value of their money. Most of them abandon the use of the prosthetic hands after paying for them cos they find it very difficult to use.
The prosthetic hands makes use of the sensation from the muscles to work. If I am to make an innovation, I would make a better and lighter prosthetic hands which would be very easy for these amputee patients to use. The prosthetic hands are made of heavy metals. I would love to develop a technology that uses very light weight metals and is also able to convert the tiniest of muscle movements into energy that would helps these folks to regain the use of their hands and also make it very affordable.
She mentioned that that particular guy that lost his two hands can’t do anything for himself without his wife. He can’t eat, bath, brush, poo or do anything that can be done with the hands. That’s a very terrible kind of life to live and you see how this innovative can go along way to help these people.