Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I catch a 60 Minutes segment on CBS featuring Robotic Prosthetics. A few years ago, my daughter had talked about a monkey controlling a robotic arm with its mind. I remember her brother and me being completely awed by this breakthrough, but for some reason didn’t make the connection between a monkey doing it and a human being being able to do it. Even now as I type this, I can’t believe I didn’t realize at the time just how close the medical science community was to making it possible for people with a long history of quadriplegia to successfully manipulate a mind-controlled robot arm with seven axes of movement. The woman featured in the 60 Minutes show was Jan Scheuerman, struck by spinocerebellar degeneration in 1996. Completely paralyzed except for her head and face, which, according to my daughter, who is studying Public Health, Pre-med, at the University of California at Irvine, is because Scheuerman’s disease is spine-related and has not affected the face and head yet.
In simple terms, the technology interprets brain signals to guide a robot arm. For the first time in 9 years, Scheuerman was able to feed herself a candy bar, an accomplishment which took only one year for her to achieve. What struck me about this woman was how excited she was to be a part of this history-making technology, and how this opportunity allowed her to have a purpose. She spoke emotionally about the prospect of this technology helping our Wounded Warriors.
I hope I am effectively conveying how amazing this is. We are not talking about most modern artificial limbs which are attached to the stump of the amputee by belts and cuffs or by suction as in this impressive Wounded Warrior video:
What we are talking about here is a robotic prosthesis, completely detached from the body, controlled completely by the mind as seen in this video. Watch as Jan Scheuerman feeds herself a candy bar. Just amazing!
I’d give this topic two 5 Heart Ratings. One, for the history-making technology itself, and the other for Jan Scheuerman. This woman, unable to care for herself in any way, unable to do the simplest of things easily taken for granted by most of us, demonstrates how important the concept of hope is. Even when the hope is for others. In this case, especially when the hope is for others. What a hero!
