Bespoke Innovations custom prosthetic legs

Via Wired.

Alternative prosthetic arm

Designer prosthetics is a fascinating area--one that challenges our preconceptions about "fixing" the disabled. Convention dictates that we do our best to help a person replace their missing limb with something that most closely approximates so-called "normal" human functioning. But that shouldn't have to be the case. Novel prosthetic design offers a remarkable opportunity for persons to do better, or be just plain different, than normal.

Hence this imaginative 'tentacle' design by Kaylene Kau, a recent graduate of the Industrial Design Department at the University of Washington. Like an octopus, users of this appendage can wrap their limb around an object to pick it up or manipulate it--a qualitatively different approach to interacting with the environment.

More.

The Immaculate designer prosthesis

Something that's always bothered me about traditional prostheses is the constant attempt to mimic normal human morphology. Artificial legs are supposed to look like real legs and artificial arms are supposed to look like real arms, right?

Well, that shouldn't always have to be the case. Why not think outside the box? This is an opportunity, after all, for some disabled people to express themselves and change their bodies in novel and unexpected ways.

This is exactly the perspective of Hans Alexander Huseklepp who believes that prostheses should go beyond mere functionality and become objects of fashion and identity. To this end he has designed the "Immaculate" which explores new possibilities for assistive devices.

Immaculate is a neurological prosthetic that will be connected to a user's central nervous system. The exterior of the prosthetic is textile clad in Corian plates which, in principle, will allow embedded technology to be seamlessly integrated. This material will also give the prosthetic a clear graphical identity. In addition, each joint is a globe joint, allowing a larger freedom of movement than a normal human arm.

Via Grinding via Medgadget.