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Sheila Pach, a resident in the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab/TEAMM Prosthetic Research Residency Program, recently presented on her clinical research to Center for Bionic Medicine staff members.
Sheila's presentation, Clinical Evaluation of a Novel Low-Cost Voluntary Closing Prosthetic Hand, focused on the evaluation of a low-cost, cable-driven hand designed by engineers within the Center for Bionic Medicine — an especially important endeavor given that an estimated 35-40 million people worldwide are in need of prosthetic and orthotic care. The goal of her study was to compare the low-cost hand developed within CBM to a commercially available body-powered hand.
In her study, she also provided feedback to the engineering team on design features of the hand. Overall she found that there was little clinical difference in the functional performance between both hands, and that the hand developed by CBM researchers has potential to become an affordable option for people with limb loss. Based on feedback from subjects, she proposed some next steps for the engineering team, including adjusting the appearance and location of the backlock button that enables different grasping modes, monitoring any future mechanical failures, and performing additional home trials to receive more qualitative and quantitative data.
Congratulations Sheila on your impactful research project!