Advantages of externally powered prosthesis with feedback system using pseudo-cineplasty

Externally powered upper-limb prostheses are difficult to use because of the lack of sensory feedback. Neuroprostheses have recently been developed for people with upper-limb amputation but are complicated, expensive, and still developing. We therefore designed a simple system by combining pseudo-cineplasty with extended physiological proprioception to provide sensory feedback to the body. We penetrated the palmaris longus tendon percutaneously with a metal ring, similar to that used in body piercing, in a nondisabled subject as a pseudo-cineplasty. The tendon and ring were connected to the system, and a sensory feedback experiment was performed. We investigated the ability of the user to determine the size of an object grasped by the prosthetic hand without visual information. The subject could distinguish between large and small objects with 100% accuracy and between small, medium, and large objects with 80% accuracy. In pseudo-cineplasty, control and sensory feedback are natural because the prosthetic hand is controlled by muscle contraction. Tension transmitted from the prosthetic hand is sensed via muscle spindles and skin sensors. This technique allows only partial sensory feedback but appears to offer several advantages over other human-machine interfaces.