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| Photo from: http://www.ibtimes.com/nepal- earthquake-2015-what-regions-us-are- risk-major-earthquake-1898706 |
On April 25, 2015, a
devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 ripped through the capital of
Nepal, Katmandu. In the wake of the twelve aftershocks that soon followed, one
even reaching a magnitude of 6.6, it was reported by the BBC News that the disaster has killed over 6,204 people and injured
13,932, with thousands still trapped in remote areas that rescuers have not
been able to reach yet. Donations have been coming in from all over the world,
reaching about $5.8 million, but the United Nations reports that this is only 1.4%
of the money that Nepal will need to rebuild itself. There are shortages of
food, clean drinking water, sanitation, and health services, and medical
professionals are scrambling to care for as many injured victims as possible.
When the Haitian earthquake of 2010
struck, it left 250,000 injured, with as many as 100,000 of those individuals
having to undergo amputations from injuries sustained from falling rubble,
collapsed buildings, and unsafe infrastructure and roads. Though nowhere near
these same numbers, the disaster in Nepal will undoubtedly force doctors across
the country to perform emergency amputations on hundreds, even thousands of
earthquake victims.
It is unfortunate that it takes a natural
disaster like an earthquake to remind the world that there is an overwhelming
lack of healthcare services in many developing countries. For many diseases and
injuries, treatment is not provided early enough, doctors are unable to save
limbs, and the only way is to amputate. After the surgery, it is up to the
amputee to figure out how he or she is going to still work or take care of him
or herself. Even if prosthetics are available, they are often crude, expensive,
and limited.
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| Photo from: http://3dprint.com/22126/learnable-3d-printed-hand/ |
However, for
researchers at the University of Illinois, working with amputees in developing
nations is the motivation behind some of the most advanced research with
prosthetic and artificial limbs.
Aadeel Akhtar
is at the forefront of creating prosthetics using 3-D printing methods and
common parts that can be mass-produced that have decreased costs down from
$25,000-$100,000 to about $250. In his paper, “Tact: Design and Performance of
an Open-Source, Affordable Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand”, Akhtar and his team
compared their design with several others and found that theirs tended to be
more lightweight, which allows for better adjustment for the amputee, and
provided as much (and even more in some comparisons) dexterity and range of
motion as other prosthetic hands on the market, but for significantly less
money.
Though still expensive for many
amputees in developing nations, especially for those still rebuilding Haita, an
already impoverished country, and those in Nepal still taking estimates of the
damage and death toll, it is a crucial step towards a future where people
across socioeconomic divides and cultures can find rehabilitation with new
prosthetic limbs.
Written by Faye Domokos, a double major in Biology and Psychology at Loyola University Chicago.
References
Padgett, T. (2010, February 17). Haiti: What to do
with a nation of amputees. Time. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1964441,00.html
Slade, P., Akhtar, A., Nguyen, M., & Bretl, T. (2015). Tact: Design
and performance of an open-sourced, affordable,
myoelectric prosthetic hand. The
International Conference on Robotics and Automation,
Seattle, WA.
(2015, May 1).
Nepal quake: Towns near epicenter ‘devastated’ – Red Cross. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32543518
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