{"id":298,"date":"2010-04-07T23:52:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T21:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/?p=298"},"modified":"2010-04-17T12:13:42","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T10:13:42","slug":"dean-kamen-at-tedmed-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/?p=298","title":{"rendered":"Dean Kamen at TedMed 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"640\" height=\"385\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/AoY1cItRiHA&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"640\" height=\"385\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/AoY1cItRiHA&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>So, interesting and captivating &#8211; but what a poor premise! And, what&#8217;s up with all jeans, can&#8217;t he wear proper clothes &#8211; let m guess: is he, maybe, an INVENTOR? But the astounding frequency of usage of the word &#8216;astounding&#8217; confirms that here, we get feelings, emotions, all riled up on a wooden stick. In reality, stress levels do build up, and prosthetic arms need to perform. They really do.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>If 100 years ago, hooks worked as well as they still do &#8211; why does it now need to be forcefully be invented away?<\/p>\n<p>Why is this one question painfully avoided by Dean Kamen as much as by all the beneficiaries of expensive overpriced myoelectric technology:<\/p>\n<p><strong>What makes a good terminal device? Why are hooks as useful as they are? What is great about body powered technology &#8211; because if it stayed popular for that long it cannot all be bad? What lesson do we learn from that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So far I have not seen Dean or his representatives learn that lesson over any of the Luke arm presentations.<\/p>\n<p>I wear TDs (terminal devices) such as both hands and hooks. And I measure the success of the prosthetic replacement <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/?p=256\" target=\"_blank\">by averaging my EODF (end of day feeling)<\/a>. And I would argue the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This disability is primarily potentially and really stressful. Prosthetics helps only if it reduces stress.<\/li>\n<li>Prostheses can indeed reduce stress but for that, they need to be built and constructed specifically &#8211; that success is not a random event.<\/li>\n<li>Stress adds up from little bits of small problems.<\/li>\n<li>These can be individually assessed but I also think I can assess them on some type of average.<\/li>\n<li>If my stress relates to grips not working on a number of objects, I can try creating some type of geometrical 3D average shape of all the objects that I tried to grasp.<\/li>\n<li>I would statistically weigh the single objects by the frequency that I try to grab them.<\/li>\n<li>Then I would choose or build a single TD that best grabs that averaged object.<\/li>\n<li>In my experience, hooks are far more refined and better suited for many of these daily average grip situations than some of these hands.<\/li>\n<li>Body powered technology &#8211; but only if built well &#8211; is extremely powerful technology with regard to a number of concise issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is laudable to see all that effort poured into building new and hugely expensive prosthetic hands. But the prosthetic has to primarily reduce stress &#8211; not primarily look like a hand or be expensive.<\/p>\n<p>And I fear that a lot of that almost frantical effort to recreate human hands also comes from a poor technical understanding of what a simple popular and affordabe robust solution such as a hook *really* can do and does. And flawed initial premises may just not make for such great results no matter how big the batteries.<\/p>\n<p>So far, the strength and simple power of the design-wise extremely refined Becker hands\u00a0 as well as the V2P Prehensor (or the eventual Dorrance hook) do reduce far more stress for me than other TDs. I really love my Regal gloved Otto Bock hand for its pure and sweet Seventies&#8217; B-movie charm &#8211; but I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;d upgrade to an Eighties&#8217; B-movie charm with that massive price tag.<\/p>\n<p>For that money, I could buy and drive a VW Phaeton 12-cylinder car and still have bucks left &#8211; and that would surely boost my ego beyond any measure.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=swisswuff\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-size=\"large\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, interesting and captivating &#8211; but what a poor premise! And, what&#8217;s up with all jeans, can&#8217;t he wear proper clothes &#8211; let m guess: is he, maybe, an INVENTOR? But the astounding frequency of usage of the word &#8216;astounding&#8217; confirms that here, we get feelings, emotions, all riled up on a wooden stick. In&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,80,55,28,29,8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bionic","category-book-and-article-reviews","category-deka-arm","category-disability-public","category-media","category-prosthetics","category-science-fiction","wpcat-49-id","wpcat-80-id","wpcat-55-id","wpcat-28-id","wpcat-29-id","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-7-id"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 10:35:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}