Pattern Recognition Lets Amputee Control Two Prosthetic Arms and Hands

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) utilized a pattern recognition in concert with a surgical process called targeted muscle reinnervation that allowed a Colorado man to control two prosthetic arms and hands. The patient had lost both arms in an electrical accident about 40 years ago. Johns Hopkins Trauma Surgeon Albert Chi, M.D. said, “by reassigning existing nerves, we can make it possible for people who have had upper-arm amputations to control their prosthetic devices by merely thinking about the action they want to perform.” The computational pattern recognition algorithms are used post-surgery to identify individual muscles that are contracting, how well they communicate with each other, and their amplitude and frequency. Chi explained that they then “[…] take that information and translate that into actual movements within a prosthetic.”