Robot Arm

[marydell]

Our 7-year old neighbor girl, who is already crazy about Charlie, announced when she met him that "he can get a robot arm, and that'll be better.  They have one for the WII and it works really good."

In fact, he really can have a robot arm, although maybe not for the WII just yet.  There are a lot of different approaches to limb deficiency nowadays, but the orthopedist said he's a good candiate for a lot of options, ranging from no prosthesis at all to a myoelectric arm, that moves based on the wearer's muscle motion.  Cool!  We're starting him with occupational therapy ASAP so that he develops his core muscles correctly--basically, just giving him as much stimulation from the left as possible so he learns to turn that way and move the limb.  I'm going to get a bell I can tie to his sleeve, now that he's starting to turn his head toward sounds.

In a few months, once he starts sitting up, we'll take him to the Rehab Institute of Chicago to talk about a starter prosthesis.  We're not going to have him in one all the time, and we're not in favor of trying to look "normal," but we want make sure he learns the ability to use prosthetics as he grows up so that his options stay open.   We're going to go up and take a tour of their pediatric limb deficiency clinic soonish so we get to know all the people and services.  Yay RIC!  That's where my sister rehabbed 30 years ago after her stroke, and we're excited to be able to give Charlie the opportunity to work with them.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Make sure he has at least six arms, with #3 having micromanipulators!

[marydell.livejournal.com]

As long as the control chip is less fragile than Doc Ock's...

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more along the lines of Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis and his amazing array of arms.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Here's where I admit that I've read almost no Heinlein--I started with Friday which didn't inspire me to read more. But I do have The Moon is a Harsh Mistress on my shelf, which counts for...nothing.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

And an exoskeleton?

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether I'd like TMIAHM if I were reading it for the first time at 40. I do still like most of the juvies, but the post-stroke dirty-old-man stuff, argggh. And I always hated Friday.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a pretty amazing book despite its problems. It might be best read as a companion to Steel Beach.

Getting the opportunity to grow up with a myoelectric arm is incredibly cool, and being able to get used to a variable body-image is also pretty cool, now I come to think about it. Charlie's a lucky guy.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Thanks! We're lucky to be able to give him options...hopefully we'll manage to strike the right balance. We want him to have the best possible range of abilities, but we also don't want him to feel "broken" if he's unable to afford a device sometime in his adult life.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

Have you looked at all (and I'm fairly certain you have) charitable organizations and R&D firms that would donate prosthetics and the like?

[marydell.livejournal.com]

We haven't, actually, because we have very good (for USians) insurance, and good incomes (which is part of why we were a good fit for Charlie). I just don't want him to decide at the age of 30 that he wants to take a year off from work to write a novel or something, and have him in a position where if his prosthetic breaks, he can't drive a car any more. There's a lot that he can learn to do with his upper arm (including steer a car--we have a cousin with the same condition who does that), as long as he's not completely dependent on a prosthetic. Also, we don't want his self-esteem to depend on having two arms...we want prosthetics to become part of his tool kit, rather than becoming part of his mental image of himself.

OTOH, RIC is doing some pretty cool "bionics" R&D...who knows what they'll have going on by the time he's grown up?

[unhappytriad.livejournal.com]

The best advantage he'll have (other than such cool parents) is growing up knowing kids and adults who use prostheses--just having it be part of the human landscape around him.

[carbonel]

RIC is where my brother rehabbed a few years ago after his traumatic brain injury that left him hemiplegic with the paralyzed side being the dominant one.

He'll never be the same person that he was before, but the change from post-coma to his current situation is nothing short of amazing, and RIC gets a great deal of the credit for it. (As, of course, does my brother, for his hard work, and also my mother, for being his constant coach.)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Oh, now there's a coincidence. My sister's stoke left her with dominant-side hemiplegia, and expectations were very poor until she went to RIC. She's still pretty profoundly disabled, but she learned to walk and talk again, and regained some use of her right hand--she can hold things in it. I'm so sorry your brother has suffered a brain injury but I'm glad he's managing to make the best of it. And, for what it's worth, my sister's progress has shown me that with brain injury, there are often improvements, many years down the road. 20 years after the stroke she went for more physical therapy, so she could learn to bend her knee when she walked, and not only did she learn that but her body temperature mysteriously evened up on her two sides, when she'd been cold on the paralyzed side ever since the stroke. It wasn't a dramatic thing but it made her more comfortable, and kept her motivated in therapy.