Today Francisco from Spain who works at the European Patent office here in Munich and lives close to the lab visited me at Erfindergarden.
As a baby he weighted 5 kg and is arm got hurt at birth when they tried to pull him out, fearing that he would smother.
He has the same strength in the injured right arm as in the left arm but his lower arm is shorter then his lift arm and he his hand is smaller and he has little strenght in his fingers.
When he drives a car with two hands his left arm gets tired after a while so he only uses is left arm suffering from back pain as he is not sitting straight.
I came to us because he saw all this DIY prothesis arms with hands but has not seen a solution for his special orthotics case. He is thinking about some kind of orthesis to enhance is arm and make it 15 to 20 cm longer (that would be a prothesis) and make his finger stronger so he get get a better grip (that would be a orthesis).
I am completely new to this field and first wanted to ask the international fablab community if they had similar cases. Do you know of a similar project?
Update: from the Fab crowd I am hearing that the medical term for that condition is “Brachial plexus injury”
What’s the between Orthotics Prosthetics? The major difference between orthotics and prosthetics is that while an orthotic device is used to enhance a person’s limb, a prosthetic device is used to replace a limb entirely.
