Sunday, April 24, 2011

science make you walk Scientists take steps to making 'bionic' leg


CHICAGO: As 20-year-old Hailey Daniswicz flexes muscles in her thigh, electrodes attached to her leg instruct a computer avatar to flex its knee and ankle -- parts of Hailey's leg that have been missing since 2005.

Daniswicz, a sophomore at Northwestern University who lost her lower leg to bone cancer, is training the computer to recognize slight movements in her thigh so she can eventually be fitted with a "bionic" leg -- a robotic prosthesis she would control with her own nerves and muscles.

"We're really integrating the machine with the person," said Levi Hargrove, a research scientist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago's Center for Bionic Medicine who is leading the project.

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