Össur has announced very promising and positive results of its year-long trials of its first mind-controlled Bionic prosthetic legs – a breakthrough that has the potential of providing millions of people to walk independently and intuitively.
Össur revealed that the latest technology, which involves tiny surgically implanted myoelectric sensors (IMES), is being tested by two amputee for over year now. The sensors have been implanted in their residual muscle tissue. According to announcement, the IMES, which was provided by the Alfred Mann Foundation, instantaneously triggers the desired movement, via a receiver located inside the prosthesis. This process occurs subconsciously, continuously and in real-time.
According to the company, feedback from both users has been very positive, and they will continue with the clinical trials to further assess and improve the technology.
Dubbing the mind-controlled Bionic prosthetic legs as a remarkable clinical breakthrough, President & CEO of Össur Jon Sigurdsson said that by adapting not only to the individual’s intentional movements but to intuitive actions, the company is closer than ever to creating prosthetics that are truly integrated with their user.
The company is already selling smart Bionic prostheses that are capable of real-time learning and automatically adjusting to their user’s walking style (gait), speed and terrain, but these still require some conscious, intentional thought from the user.
According to Dr. Thorvaldur Ingvarsson, M.D., Ph.D, the orthopaedic surgeon who leads Össur’s research and development efforts and spearheaded the mind-controlled prosthetics project, movement in able-bodied individuals generally begins subconsciously, which triggers electrical impulses inside the body that catalyze the appropriate muscles into action. Össur’s new technology replicates that process in an amputee: that electronic impulse from the brain is received by an IMES that was surgically placed by Dr. Ingvarsson into muscles in the amputee’s residual limb.
Ingvarsson said that the new technology allows users’ experience with their prosthesis to become more intuitive and integrative and the result is an instantaneous physical movement of the prosthesis in whatever way the amputee intended. Users are not longer required to think about their movements because their unconscious reflexes are automatically converted into myoelectric impulses that control their Bionic prosthesis.
The new mind-controlled technology works with all current commercially available Össur Bionic prostheses, including the company’s POWER KNEE, RHEO KNEE, PROPRIO FOOT and SYMBIONIC LEG.
