A new prosthetic limb can restore sensation for people who have lost a limb and even relieve the phantom pains they feel, LiveScience reports. Developed by researchers at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve and the government’s APT Center, the prosthesis stimulates the nerves in a patient’s upper arm, allowing them to once again experience the sense of touch.
The underlying research is spotlighted in this week’s issue of Science Translational Medicine, titled: “A neural interface provides long-term stable natural touch perception.”
LiveScience writes:
It’s not the first prosthetic to restore touch to an amputee, but it may provide a more “natural” sensation than earlier devices, said head researcher Dustin Tyler, a biomedical engineer at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. The device’s system has now been in testing for more than two years.
See the video Case Western produced about the technology:
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
