Medicine has been greatly benefited in the last decades by the development of technology. There have been many systems and mechanisms that have been created and that have been of great help to many patients to improve their lives, or even save them. The latest has been a new prosthetic system made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which improves on the current one based on magnetic pieces.
Today, the vast majority of motor-powered prostheses are controlled by electrodes that are placed on the user, close to the damaged area.
A breakthrough in the future of prosthetics
However, a new system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could replace the electrodes with a magnetic system based on implanted beads.
The classic thing is that the electrodes are implanted close to the damaged area of the user or that they adhere to the skin. The job of the electrodes is to detect electrical signals that are produced when the muscles try to do certain things.
Depending on the signals detected, the prosthesis is activated to move, allowing the person to make the movement they initially wanted.
However, scientists believe that this is not an ideal solution , as when you use this system, the brain tells the muscle what to do, but not what the muscle is actually doing.
Therefore, the researchers began to develop a new system called magnetomicrometry.
A magnetic system, the key
This new mechanism is based on the implantation of two magnetic pieces in each of the muscles of the affected area of the patient. Then, sensors located outside the body are used to monitor how the distance between the two magnets changes in each muscle.
In this way, it is possible to instantly detect how much a muscle is stretching or contracting and at what speed, so that a prosthesis can be activated very quickly to respond.
Experiments have been carried out in laboratories with turkeys, placing pairs of these magnetic pieces with a measurement of 3 millimeters in the muscles of their legs.
When the scientists manually moved the animal’s ankle joints, external magnetic sensors were able to accurately detect and measure the associated movements of the muscles in just three milliseconds.
With this new system, muscle length and speed are directly measured. The positions and speeds of the prosthetic joints to be controlled can be calculated so that a robotic controller can then control those joints.
They have first experimented with animals, but it is expected that in the coming years they will also do so with people. This technology could be very useful to improve the lives of people who have reduced mobility.