Clinical Evaluation of a Socket-Ready Naturally Controlled Multichannel Upper Limb Prosthetic System

Abstract

Research conducted over the last decades indicates a necessity of having larger number of EMG sensors in order to extract sufficient information needed for natural control of upper limb prosthetics. Various studies have addressed this issue, though clinical transition and evaluation of such systems on a larger pool of patients is still missing. We propose a specifically designed system which allows users to perform clinically relevant tests in an unobstructed way while handling dexterous prosthesis. Eight electrodes were embedded into customized sockets along with the controllers driving an algorithm recently tested in laboratory conditions that allows simultaneous manipulation of four out of seven prosthetic functions. The fully self-contained system was evaluated on seven amputees conducting the Southampton Hand Assessment Procedure. The scores achieved were compared to those obtained using their own commercial devices. The study shows the necessary steps to validate novel control algorithms in a clinically meaningful context.

This work was supported by the Christian Doppler Research Foundation of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy and by the European Research Council Advanced Grant DEMOVE (contract #267888).