In the not too distant past, just wearing prosthetics could induce shame: The Barbie doll cosmesis (a cosmetic cover), tipped with a hook, acted like social repellent, pushing the user and the observer apart. "It was like having a scarlet letter," says Marshall Young, an industrial designer for Otto Bock HealthCare, of the old-style prosthetic limbs. "It was, 'I've got this damn thing and now my life sucks.' " All that is changing rapidly, not only because prostheses are being built with materials found in sports cars and jet airplanes; or because designers are giving their creations an exuberant, unapologetic carbon-fiber sparkle; or even because nerve reintegration and myoelectrics are offering some amputees the joy of normal function. The biggest reason for amputees' unlikely rise into a new, socially advantaged class comes from something much more mundane: profit. The prosthetics business is set to explode, and its products will make amputees stronger, faster, and, to some, more desirable than the rest of us, says Paul Hochman In the meantime, Hugh Herr, director of the Biomechatronics Group at the Michigan Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, says you can dispense with the Tiny Tim pity and the warm fuzzy feeling you get when a little girl struggles to her feet on poorly designed stilts. Because the new machines – and they are machines – are becoming so lustrous and so efficient that some people are already willing to chop off a perfectly good limb to get one. The $2.8 billion orthotics and prosthetics business revolves around a few major players: the German manufacturing company Otto Bock HealthCare; Iceland-based össur; Fillauer in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Ohio Willow Wood in Mount Sterling, Ohio; and patient-services provider Hanger Orthopedic in Bethesda, Maryland. There are also smaller manufacturers that supply components such as motors and microchips. The industry receives regular media attention for its work with returning American soldiers, but those soldiers represent less than 0.1per cent of the 1.7 million amputees in the US. Unfortunately, that customer base is about to get much larger. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) has predicted that 29 million Americans will be diagnosed with diabetes by 2050 – increasing their chances of having a lower extremity amputated by a factor of 28. Hanger Orthopedic's Chief Executive Officer, Tom Kirk, points to diabetes and vascular disorders, largely driven by a 37 per cent increase in obesity between 1998 and 2006, as the reason for most amputations. According to the CDCP, diabetes-related amputations have risen to as many as 84,000 in a single 12-month period. Not surprisingly, the money is following the market. Michigan Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Hugh Herr co-founded a company called iWalk, which has received $10 million in venture financing to develop the PowerFoot One – what the company calls the "world's first actively powered prosthetic ankle and foot". Dear Egyptian Mail readers, Your comments and/or contributions are welcome. We promise to publish whatever is deemed publishable at the end of each series of articles. [email protected]
