Sci-Fi Revolution

Audiences the world over recall the famous “I am your father” scene from George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy. Face-to-face for the first time, Lord Vader slices off the hand of Luke Skywalker, his long-lost son. Saved from certain death through The Force, Luke is then treated for his injuries and fitted with a new, fully functional, electronic hand.

It's the stuff of science fiction legend. Or is it?

Meet Touch Bionics' i-LIMB Hand. Crafted by the Scotland-based developer of upper-limb prosthetics, the i-LIMB is the world's first fully articulating and commercially available bionic hand.

The hand is manufactured with high-strength plastics and is controlled by a highly intuitive system that uses a traditional two-input myoelectric (muscle signal) to open and close the fingers — to look and act like a real human hand. The muscle signals are registered through electrodes that sit on the surface of the skin.

The Force indeed!

With its leading-edge electronics and mechanical engineering, the Touch Bionics hand, which has thus far been fitted to 370 patients, presents unprecedented potential to provide greater independence for its users. That potential recently garnered the i-LIMB and its engineers a place among winners of the 2008 da Vinci Awards.

Established in 2001 to showcase outstanding achievement in technologies, designs and disciplines that enhance personal mobility, the da Vinci Awards have become a launchpad of sorts for a number of such advancements.

Leslie Kota, vice president of marketing and development for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, whose Michigan Chapter began the awards, says DME inventions and innovations are a natural fit for the awards.

“Adaptive and assistive technologies can play an important role in helping people overcome their physical limitations,” Kota says, “and the purpose [of the da Vinci Awards] is to acknowledge the most innovative developments and research in the areas of adaptive and assistive technology.”

Chosen from among nominations sent from around the world, this year's award winners — selected by a committee that includes individuals with MS — run the gamut from voice-activated technologies to a specialized bike. Some of the 2008 winners are large corporations, but Jim and Veach Breakwell will tell you that national and international companies didn't receive all the honors.

“We're actually only a two-man operation,” says Jim, who, with his cousin Veach invented the Brake-Well Wheelchair Braking System.