Bionic Man – Fact of Fiction?
If you went to fight in the war and all your legs and arms were blown off or had to be amputated, you’d get new shiny prosthetic fake ones right? Nevertheless, before this decade, you wouldn’t have being able to do much with your new limbs. All that can be doneisto make them seem as real as possible so they don’t look plastic like Barbie’s oras mechanical as Robocop’s but instead more life-likesimilar to the terminator’slimbs (when his skin’s not burned off).
However, imagine having electronic versions of your old hands and legs that are covered with material that practicallylooks like skin; that would let youhave the sameenhanced strength and speed as the terminator. I’d obviously never dare shake your hand because you’d probably crush mine into dust; and you’d definitely never be late for lectures due to your super-fast, super-strong and never-fattening legs. You’d become like the bionic woman. Another fictitious example is the ‘6 million dollar man’; an astronaut who is barely alive but is brought back to life as a cyborg, a “better, faster and stronger” human being. This iswhat some people believe to be the next step in human evolution.
Even though terminator-type prosthetic limbs don’t exist now,the potential to develop them is improving at such a fast ratethat by next year or sometime in the next century, we could all basicallybecome cyborgs by choice. So, I’d say that the bionic man is both partly fiction and partly fact since we can never know unless the technology is fully exploited.
The cutting-edge applied research carried out by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) has produced the next generation oflife-changing prosthetic arms, which have about 8 degrees of freedom although more efficient ones are in progress. This means that you’d still be able to pick up a pen, grip a telephone handset with a controlled force, remove debit cards from your pocket and ‘naturally’ swing your arm while you’re walking, just like any normal arm. This is made possible because nerves are attached to the prosthetic arm. The other ends of the nervesare then attached to your muscles near the amputated site to connect the prosthetic limb with your body. When you want to move, you just think about the movement and the prosthetic arm will carry out the action for you. I just think that’s amazing because it would allow people born without arms to experience life with a different perspective.
At the moment, the best known bionic objects include cochlear implants, which allows deaf people to have normal hearing throughout the rest of their lives (sorry, nosuper-hearing available yet!); and artificial hearts, which can last for more than a year. Other exciting bionics have also emerged such as a non-invasive implant, which must be placed on the correct position inside the bodyand is timed to create tiny impulses at regular intervals in orderto contract leg muscles. As a result,the legs can move involuntarily. This is ideal for people who can’t control their legs (paraplegics) as they could use it to cycle.
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Sahra Abdallah Haji
Medical Physics, MSci
Tutor: Dr Amar Dora
Medical Physics Tutor: Ms Clare Elwell
Bibliography
Bionic Arm Factsheet 2