The world’s most advanced bionic hand

The world's first commercially available bionic hand took many hands many years to develop. Created by Touch Bionics, it's multi-articulating, meaning each finger has its own motor.

Artificial hands are often hooklike, limited to simple open and close gestures, but the iLimb has more subtle capabilities, like a credit-card grip for grasping narrow objects. It also has a power hold for larger things like coffee mugs. Research on the device began in the United Kingdom's national health system back in the 1960s.

One of the key features is the material from which the bionic hand is made of, i.e. high-strength plastics, which make the i-LIMB lightweight, robust and highly appealing to patients. Developers made it possible for the fingers to be unscrewed from the hand, so it would be easier to service. Previous artificial hands had to be completely removed in case they broke, which was rather uncomfortable since the amputees had to wait for weeks until their prosthetic hand is fixed.

Since the launch of the device, over 400 amputees benefited from the new bionic hand, which was characterized by Stuart Mead, the CEO of Touch Bionics, as one of the company's greatest accomplishments. He was very honored with fact that the i-LIMB was listed in Time magazine along with many incredible inventions of 2008.

Next up for Touch Bionics? A prosthetic wrist unit, prosthetic fingers and a full bionic arm.
See the hand in action: http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/the-worlds-most-advanced-bionic-hand/