

Dean Kamen's robotic "Luke" arm - How long before this can perform martial arts? - attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0_mLumx-6Y

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ShabbyDoo
I'm missing a foot (don't BASE jump kids!), but I can't imagine how difficult
it would be to be without an arm, much less two. I have to wonder if they'll
ever be able to get the reliability of this arm design sufficiently high that
it won't be a constant maintenance burden for the user. I break some aspect of
my prosthesis every few months, and it's a pretty simple design. This arm has
perhaps perhaps three orders of magnitude more components.

Furthermore, the market for these will be quite limited as insurance companies
are unlikely to provide one for an amputee, especially one who has an arm
remaining. I'm told it's very hard to get the Otto Bock C-Leg
([http://www.ottobockus.com/PRODUCTS/LOWER_LIMB_PROSTHETICS/c-...](http://www.ottobockus.com/PRODUCTS/LOWER_LIMB_PROSTHETICS/c-leg2.asp))
paid for now, and it's "only" $40K for a complete system. The likely segments
are those who have military injuries or workman's compensation claims (the
same thing, I guess) where the burden to restore one to "normal" is much
greater.

For me, I'm much more interested in schemes to attach lower limb prosthetics
to existing bones (a tibia in my case) as most maintenance issues are related
to the socket rather than the foot or other parts.

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TrevorJ
That's really a sad fact. Insurance companies are in it for the profit sadly.

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ShabbyDoo
One part of the problem is that prosthetists are paid a flat rate for
providing a leg/arm/whatever based on a set of standardized product encodings
for the parts/labor.

This leads to two incentives:

1\. Pick the cheapest components that meet the category requirements. So, in
each reimbursement category (micro-controller knee, etc.), its a race to the
bottom as there's a financial incentive to choose the least expensive knee
rather than the best one. Component providers race to reduce costs once a new
category is assigned a reimbursement code (another problem altogether).

2\. Pick the cheapest patients. An active person like me is much more
demanding than a demented old guy in a nursing home. I make appointments to
get things fixed if there's something wrong and demand a functional,
comfortable leg. The old guy gets a leg because Medicare pays for it even
though he may never actually walk more than a few feet on it! This is actually
a common scenario. So, the old guy accepts whatever leg he's given and doesn't
complain. Furthermore, since the amount reimbursed for labor increases with
the complexity of the system (term used for bundle of parts that make up
leg/arm), there's an incentive to provide too good of a system for a patient's
needs (people in wheelchair don't need a $40K leg).

Luckily, my prosthetist doesn't optimize for short-term financial gain.
However, I'm told that practices like this are common. So, the insurance
companies protect themselves in coarse-grained ways, often at the detriment of
patients with real needs.

I don't know what to do about this problem. I think it's part of a broader
issue with healthcare in the US -- we are unwilling to accept the notion that
human happiness might not be maximized by providing everyone with the "best"
possible medical care. We provide life support to 90 year-old people who are
unlikely to live much longer no matter what we do. We buy new wheelchairs when
refurbished ones would be sufficient. Insurance companies spend money one
people even when they might themselves choose to forgo the spending in lieu of
the cash. We expect our insurance companies to pay for everything that's
"medically necessary" and (I think) mandate such care by law. So, because
market forces aren't allowed to throttle demand down to rational levels, the
insurance company implements bad proxies.

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dgabriel
Ok, so the segway didn't change the world, but I completely believe that Dean
Kamen can, in fact, change the world. This plus the water purifier, plus the
thousands of kids brought into robotics and science via the FIRST program... I
kind of feel like he's a modern Edison, despite being a dropout from a second
tier technical school. I guess someone forgot to tell him that pleasing your
professor is more important than pursuing your dreams.

What's important about this, too, is that we, as software folk, often forget
that there are many, many different kinds of technical "start-ups," that have
nothing to do with the web or personal computers. It's nice to be reminded
that the technical world has room for small, lion-y robotics and biotechnology
start-ups, as well.

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stcredzero
How long before it can perform martial arts? Give it a configuration like this
one:

[http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/trailer/100130...](http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/trailer/10013014/trailer_35.jpg)

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ggrot
Seeing technology used to do things like this just makes me very happy.

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James_Johnson
_Crushes goblet full of wine_

Groovy.

