Life without fingers and thumbs - REMAP - Custom made equipment for disabled people
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Life without fingers and thumbs

  • Bob Scales
  • Scotland
  • 00006853
  • Complete
  • 0 comments

Our client contracted Covid fairly early on, which led to sepsis and necessitated the amputation of all fingers and thumbs. Help from the NHS was coming but not in the immediate future.

I visited with her Occupational Therapist and saw that the OT had sourced some basic devices on line intended to assist arthritic hands holding things. They gave me the germ of an idea and I used parts to make a secure but versatile pair of holders which could hold a variety of devices.

The Challenge

The client wanted to be able to live as independently as possible but, without fingers and thumbs, it was impossible to do many of the things we take for granted. To be able to do some hobbies was important as she was on her own at home all day and needed to be able to do something to pass the time, preferably constructive and useful. The NHS was working on prosthetics but bespoke versions were some time away and the universal one provided did not have the sensitivity to do detail tasks.

Hobbies included painting and craft work, so I targeted a paint brush and craft knife as a simple starting point.

Eating is clearly important so I looked at this next.

The solution

Possible devices
Finger amputee device holder detail

Two device holders were made, one for each hand.

Each consisted of a padded aluminium plate to fit the client’s hands, see drawings. Epoxy resin was used to secure a 12.7mm square aluminium tube to the plate to be in-line with where the client’s fingers had been. The tube has a magnet glued at the wrist end. Pieces of nominally 10mm square aluminium rod were machined at one end down to 9.05mm so that they would slide smoothly but securely into the tube. A magnet glue in the end was attracted to the magnet in the tube and held the square rod in place. The square rod was held securely but could be removed and rotated into 4 orientations.

A number of square rods were prepared. The other end of each square rod was machined, drilled, screwed and glued with epoxy resin, as necessary, to hold various devices. The first were a small paint brush and a craft knife. After these experiments the next were a knife, fork and spoon.

As for what next, a more universal gripping device is clearly required for some of the more general household jobs. Most prosthetics replace a missing or damaged limb and there is therefore usually space to accommodate the actuators etc. In this case the client has a perfectly usable wrist, which is an incredibly valuable universal joint but unfortunately it occupies the space where actuators could be accommodated. It should be possible to place the necessary equipment in a flat package against the chest/under the arm and then transmit the motion to the mechanical gripper using flexible bicycle hydraulic brake pipes. Operation could be via a strain gauge on a wrist muscle.

The benefit

The client is now able to eat independently, almost normally, although the flexibility in the wrist will compensate, with practice, for the lack of flexibility when using fingers. She can also do some basic craft work and other jobs.

When the client first tried the knife and fork she said “where have you been for the last three years?!”

Client using device to write

Client using device to eat

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