Woman Regains Her Life With New Prosthetic Arm That Learns From Her
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Headlines about artificial intelligence (AI) have been centered around a collective sense of fear—fear of change and fear of the unknown. However, some industries and people would greatly benefit from this technology, such as the healthcare sector and people like Sarah de Lagarde.
In September 2022, de Lagarde had her right arm and the lower portion of her right leg amputated after a train accident. In an interview with The New York Times, the public relations executive said she had felt invincible before the accident. A month before that fateful day, she and her husband hiked Mount Kilimanjaro. Coming from that high, she was suddenly forced to wonder what the rest of her life would look like.
The then-42-year-old mother of one recalibrated her mindset. Instead of focusing on what she had lost, she thought about what could replace it.
Machine learning and prosthetics
Eighteen months after the accident, de Lagarde was able to regain a sense of normalcy, thanks to the advancements in AI-based prosthetics. She now has a new prosthetic arm, which enables her to style her hair, make morning coffee, and water plants, among other tasks. Her nine-year-old daughter, Daphne, will occasionally hold her prosthetic hand as they take walks together.
The prosthetic hand is powered by machine learning, an AI type that recognizes patterns and makes predictions based on past behavior.
To customize the prosthetic hand for de Lagarde, she spent months regularly visiting a clinic in London to help train the software. Technicians attached electrodes to the end of her residual limb and told her to think about making basic movements, such as turning a door handle. This triggered her muscles as though her arm was still there, providing data to teach her prosthetic hand how to react when she made specific gestures.
Now, the sensors embedded in her arm detect de Lagarde’s movement and send a signal to her prosthetic hand to perform the task. The more she uses the prosthetic arm, the better the software gets at predicting what she’s trying to do.
Some cons
Although this all sounds promising, the technology could be better. For one, the prosthetic arm is heavy, causing de Lagarde’s back and shoulder to hurt, and it needs charging at least once a day. Wearing the prosthetic arm can also get uncomfortable in hot weather.
Furthermore, the prosthetic arm lacks tactile function, which has caused de Lagarde to accidentally drop her phone multiple times after forgetting that it’s in her prosthetic hand. She is also vulnerable to any software or hardware glitches.
The prosthetic arm is also expensive. The hand, arm, elbow, and AI software are made by different companies, which inflated the expense. A whole prosthetic arm system like de Lagarde’s can cost over 100,000 pounds, or about $125,000.
De Lagarde partially paid for it by crowdfunding, raising more than 30,000 pounds (about $38,000). And Covvi, the British maker of the prosthetic hand, donated that portion of her new prosthetic limb for free after reading about her accident.
The future of AI prosthetics
In an interview with The New York Times, Simon Pollard, chief executive of Covvi, said de Lagarde’s arm heralds upcoming advancements in prosthetics, which will benefit various people, from those living with diabetes to people from conflict zones.
As of this publication, researchers are exploring the possibility of embedding microsensors directly into a person's residual limb. This could provide more detailed data for AI systems to analyze and improve.
