Word: holgersen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...restore basic function to his left arm, Holgersen uses the Freehand System, a device that restores the ability to grasp, hold and release objects. During a seven-hour operation, surgeons at Denmark's National Hospital made incisions in Holgersen's upper left arm, forearm and chest. Eight flexible cuff electrodes, each about the size of a small coin, were attached to the muscles in his arm and hand that control grasping. These electrodes were then connected by ultrathin wires to a stimulator - a kind of pacemaker for the nervous system - implanted in his chest. The stimulator was in turn linked...
...When Holgersen wants to pick up a glass, he moves his right shoulder upward. This movement sends an electrical signal from the position sensor, which is worn under his clothing, to the stimulator in his chest, which amplifies it and passes it along to the appropriate muscles in his arm and hand. In response, the muscles contract and his left hand closes. When he wants to release the glass, he moves his right shoulder downward and his left hand opens...
...strange when you first use it," Holgersen says of the device. "I move my right shoulder and see my left hand move. But I quickly got used to it, and now it feels very natural. I don't even think about it. It has become part of me and made me more independent." Thanks to the Freehand implant, Holgersen can now hold a cup, lift a fork and grasp a pen, actions he was previously unable to perform...
...want to make patients aware of the parts of their bodies that they cannot sense," says Sinkjaer, who has worked with Brian Holgersen for the past six years, "and use sensory information from the skin to control the hand automatically as in able-bodied subjects." This kind of sensitive prosthetic would recruit afferent nerves to send tactile information from paralyzed limbs to other parts of the body, where the sensations could be perceived. With such a device Holgersen might feel the weight of a freshly brewed cup of coffee as a tingling sensation on his cheek; the heavier...
Computer pioneer Norbert Wiener once advised, "Render unto man the things which are man's and unto the computer the things which are the computer's." As the experiences of people like Stelarc, Brian Holgersen and Marie show, it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference...