A survey on what Australian’s with upper limb difference want in a prosthesis: justification for using soft robotics and additive manufacturing for customized prosthetic hands

Purpose: Upper limb prostheses are part of a rapidly changing market place. Despite development in device design, surveys report low levels of uptake and dissatisfaction with current prosthetic design. In this study, we present the results of a survey conducted with people with upper limb difference in Australia on their use of current prostheses and preferences in a prosthetic in order to inform future prosthetic hand design. Methods: An online survey was conducted on upper limb amputees, with 27 respondents that completed the survey. The survey was a mixture of open-ended questions, ranking design features and quantitative questions on problems experienced and desired attributes of future prosthesis designs. Results: Common key issues and concerns were isolated in the survey related to the weight, manipulation and dexterity, aesthetics, sensory feedback and financial cost; each of which could be addressed by additive manufacturing and soft robotics techniques. Conclusions: The adaptability of additive manufacturing and soft robotics to the highlighted concerns of participants shows that further research into these techniques is a feasible method to improve patient satisfaction and acceptance in prosthetic hands. Implications for Rehabilitation Even with recent developments and advances in prosthetic design, the needs and desires of prosthetic users are not being met with current products. The desires and needs of those with upper limb difference are diverse. Using additive manufacturing to produce prosthetics allows for mass customization of prosthetics to meet these diverse needs while reducing costs. A soft robotic approach to prosthetics can help meet the desires of reducing weight and costs, while maintaining functionality. </ul

Towards including end-users in the design of prosthetic hands: ethical analysis of a survey of Australians with upper-limb difference

Advances in prosthetic design should benefit people with limb difference. But empirical evidence demonstrates a lack of uptake of prosthetics among those with limb difference, including of advanced designs. Non-use is often framed as a problem of prosthetic design or a user's response to prosthetics. Few studies investigate user experience and preferences, and those that do tend to address satisfaction or dissatisfaction with functional aspects of particular designs. This results in limited data to improve designs and, we argue, this is pragmatically and ethically problematic. This paper presents results of a survey we conducted in 2017 with people with upper limb difference in Australia. The survey sought to further knowledge about preferences surrounding prosthetics and understanding of how preferences relate to user experience, perspective, and context. Survey responses demonstrated variety in the uptake, use and type of prosthetics and that use of, preferences about, and impacts of prosthetics rely not just on design factors but on various contextual factors bearing on identity and social understandings of disability and prosthetic use. From these results, we argue that non-use of prosthetics could be usefully reframed as an issue of understanding how prosthetics can best support users' autonomy. This supports the claim that there is a need to incorporate user engagement into design processes for prosthetic limbs, though further work is needed on methods for doing so

Towards Including End-Users in the Design of Prosthetic Hands: Ethical Analysis of a Survey of Australians with Upper-Limb Difference

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Science and Engineering Ethics as: Walker MJ, Goddard E, Stephens-Fripp B, Alici G. 2020. Towards including end-users in the design of prosthetic hands: Ethical analysis of a survey of Australians with upper-limb difference. Science and Engineering Ethics 26:981-1007. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00168-2 Conditions of use: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/policies/accepted-manuscript-terms</a

CenTauR: Toward a universal scale and masks for standardizing tau imaging studies

INTRODUCTION: Recently, an increasing number of tau tracers have become available. There is a need to standardize quantitative tau measures across tracers, supporting a universal scale. We developed several cortical tau masks and applied them to generate a tau imaging universal scale. METHOD: One thousand forty-five participants underwent tau scans with either 18F-flortaucipir, 18F-MK6240, 18F-PI2620, 18F-PM-PBB3, 18F-GTP1, or 18F-RO948. The universal mask was generated from cognitively unimpaired amyloid beta (Aβ)- subjects and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients with Aβ+. Four additional regional cortical masks were defined within the constraints of the universal mask. A universal scale, the CenTauRz, was constructed. RESULTS: None of the regions known to display off-target signal were included in the masks. The CenTauRz allows robust discrimination between low and high levels of tau deposits. DISCUSSION: We constructed several tau-specific cortical masks for the AD continuum and a universal standard scale designed to capture the location and degree of abnormality that can be applied across tracers and across centers. The masks are freely available at https://www.gaain.org/centaur-project