Staying in Touch: Toward the Restoration of Sensory Feedback in Hand Prostheses Using Peripheral Neural Stimulation

Hand amputation is a traumatic event that dramatically and permanently changes the life of any person who undergoes one. After surgery, the amputee requires a prosthetic device to perform activities of daily living-in particular, tasks requiring grasping and manipulation functions. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Amputee Coalition, there are 1.9 million amputees who use limb prosthetic services and products, and it is estimated that, among them, 500,000 are upper-limb amputees, with approximately 185,000 new amputations every year (www.amputee-coalition.org). The Center for Orthotic and Prosthetic Care, a consortium of providers in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, and New York, says that upper-limb amputations represent 14% of all amputations (www.centeropcare.com). Based on these statistics, we can estimate that, in the European Union, there are a total of 3 million amputees, with 290,000 new cases each year; among these, 40,000 are upperlimb amputations.