Hand prosthetic gives teen new independence
(PhysOrg.com) -- A 15 year old British girl, Chloe Holmes, has been in the news as being among the youngest in Europe to wear a special prosthetic hand with state of the art bionic fingers. The bionic digits have enabled her to cut her own food, to eat with knife and fork, and brush her teeth for the first time since stricken with streptococcal septicemia, after coming down with chicken pox, at three years of age. The illness caused her to lose all her fingers on the left hand. She was left with one thumb and half a finger on her right hand. Sensors in the sleeve of her prosthetic hand made by Touch Bionics in Scotland enable her to manipulate objects, no small achievement considering the difficulties amputees have traditionally faced in living with prosthetic hands.