Neuroprosthetics in amputee and brain injury rehabilitation

The goals of rehabilitation medicine programs are to promote health, restore functional impairments and improve quality of life. The field of neuroprosthetics has evolved over the last decade given an improved understanding of neuroscience and the incorporation of advanced biotechnology and neuroengineering in the rehabilitation setting to develop adaptable applications to help facilitate recovery for individuals with amputations and brain injury. These applications may include a simple cognitive prosthetics aid for impaired memory in brain-injured individuals to myoelectric prosthetics arms with artificial proprioceptive feedback for those with upper extremity amputations. The integration of neuroprosthetics into the existing framework of current rehabilitation approaches not only improves quality-of-care and outcomes but help broadens current rehabilitation treatment paradigms. Although, we are in the infancy of the understanding the true benefit of neuroprosthetics and its clinical applications in the rehabilitation setting there is tremendous amount of promise for future research and development of tools to help facilitate recovery and improve quality of life in individuals with disabilities.