Background: While sparsely researched, funding structures may play an important role in use of and satisfaction with prostheses and related health services.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to (1) quantify the direct costs of prosthesis wear, (2) explore variations in funding distribution, and (3) describe the role of affordability in prosthesis selection and wear.

Study design: An anonymous, online cross-sectional descriptive survey was administered.

Methods: Analyses were conducted of qualitative and quantitative data extracted from an international sample of 242 individuals with upper limb absence.

Results: Access to prosthesis funding was variable and fluctuated with age, level of limb absence and country of care. Of individuals who gave details on prosthetic costs, 63% (n = 69) were fully reimbursed for their prosthetic expenses, while 37% (n=40) were financially disadvantaged by the cost of components (mean [SD] US$9,574 [$9,986]) and their ongoing maintenance (US$1,936 [$3,179]). Of the 71 non-wearers in this study, 48% considered cost an influential factor in their decision not to adopt prosthesis use.

Conclusions: Prosthesis funding is neither homogeneous nor transparent and can be influential in both the selection and use of a prosthetic device.

Clinical relevance

Inequitable access to prosthesis funding is evident in industrialized nations and may lead to prosthesis abandonment and/or diminished quality of life for individuals with upper limb absences. Increased efforts are required to ensure equitable access to upper limb prosthetics and related services in line with individuals’ needs.

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Когда скептики вслух сомневаются в возможности создания искусственного тела человека в считаные десятилетия, это говорит лишь о том, что они плохо знакомы с новейшими достижениями науки и техники в этой области.

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Numerous medical and biomechanical applications invol-ve electromyogram (EMG) signal processing in 19 real time. Amplitude analysis of the EMG often requires computation of the signal’s linear envelope. 20 For this purpose, several methods are commonly described in the literature; however, not all match 21 the speed requirement of real-time applications. We introduce an implementation which accelerates 22 the computation of EMG signals linear envelopes, based on the pipe-line commonly found in the literature 23 for this kind of operation. The algorithm improves the computa-tion’s time requirement, at the expense of 24 memory requirement, by using the result of the envelope’s computation at the previous instant. This 25 algorithm saves approximately 96% of the computation time and allows computing linear envelopes of 26 several EMG signals in real time.

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In this study, we focus on a rehabilitation motion of
human wrist joint and aim at supporting these rehabilitation training by introducing a mechanical system. A pneumatic parallel manipulator is introduced since it can drive enough D.O.F to correspond to a wrist motion and has inherent compliance characteristics resulted from air compressibility. We propose a new training method for a muscle strengthening training based on ElectroMyoGraphy (EMG), where a payload is set between joint angle and the muscle we want to train directly. In addition, we propose a method to de-tect muscle fatigue based on a frequency analysis of EMG. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through some experiments.

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MINDWALKER is an EC FP7 funded project which aims at researching, designing and prototyping technologies for the seamless control of a lower limbs exoskeleton, relying on BNCI (Brain Neural Computer Interfaces) technologies. It promotes a non-invasive approach minimizing the cognitive load of the user for controlling the system. This paper first introduces the MINDWALKER projects, its challenges and solutions being considered. Then the paper presents a perspective of how related technologies, which primary application field deals with the rehabilitation of spinal cord injured (SCI) subjects, may be consi-dered for applications in the space domain.

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