Comment on Nerve-controlled prosthetics
Fondots@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoI don’t know if these are or aren’t nerve controlled, I suspect it’s going bad the muscle movement you described
But let’s assume they are in fact controlled by nerves
Most of the movement of your fingers actually comes from muscles in your forearm pulling on tendons that go into your fingers.
So assuming you wanted to hook a prosthetic up to the same nerves and such you’d have used for your real fingers, you’d still probably end up flexing your forearm muscles because that’s where those nerves go
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Technically all prosthetics are “nerve controlled”, but what you are describing is called nerve integration. Which is possible, but very rare and mostly experimental when it comes to prosthetics.
What she is wearing is called a myoelectric prosthetic, and they have been around since the late 70s. The myoelectric sensors require a healthy muscle group that the user can activate by flexing. This is a problem with a lot of amputees, as some may be missing from traumatic amputations, and the rest tend to attrify over time.
Myoelectric prosthetic are not reflexive, and you do have to consciously flex the individual muscles to make the terminal end device function in a specific way, and it does take a lot of concentration and practice.