Isabella's 1st Myoelectric Hand

It's finally here! Well, I really shouldn't say "finally", because at at the tender age of 16 months, Isabella has received her first myoelectric prosthesis. The myo is not a covered insurance benefit, and truth be told, our family was recently dropped from our insurance leaving Isabella and everyone else (besides Ariana) uninsured. We always knew that we would like for Isabella to have the opportunity to use a myoelectric prosthesis, if possible, but had it not been for Inner Wheel and our doctors and prostheticians at Hanger, this would have been just another pipe dream. It has been a huge blessing that the philanthropic group known as Inner Wheel has designed a fund specifically to provide myoelectric prosthetics for children with upper limb deficiencies. Out-of-pocket, the myo would have cost us $25,000. But thanks to the wonderful hearts and generous spirits of these women who don't even know us, Isabella's new hand has cost us nothing.

Isabella's prosthesis works when she flexes her wrist flexor muscles in her arm. When these muscles fire, it sends an electric signal to a sensor on the inside of her prosthesis, causing the hand to open. As long as those muscles are flexed, the hand should remain open. When she relaxes those muscles, it causes the hand to close. It's really pretty amazing.

We just picked up the myo yesterday, but I'm cautiously optimistic that she's going to figure it out rather quickly. Day one, she rarely was able to get it to open (intentionally or unintentionally), but by today, she's able to get it to open quite regularly. Of course, she still has yet to learn the correlation between her actions directly and the myo's operation, much less that she's supposed to use the hand to grab hold of an object when it's open, but she'll get there -- she's a bright little sprite.

There are a couple downsides to the myo (like with anything), such as that it is hard to train her how to use it functionally. There is no manual override to get the hand to open so that we can show her how to grab objects and utilize two hands. The hand open when she opens it, and it stays shut otherwise (shut tight), so the window of opportunity for our guidance is very small. She has to have her "aha" moment on her own. Also, when she does use the hand for play or for feeding or what-have-you, should she trigger her wrist flexors accidentally, the hand will open and she will drop whatever it was she was holding. This has happened a couple times so far. Lastly, should she decide (or just happen) to open and close her hand to where it's pinching a person, this would hurt...a lot. And then we'd either have to wait for Bella to open her hand again to release or we'd have to quickly remove the prosthesis and try to trigger the sensor with our fingers to release her vice on whomever (she ripped out a chunk of Gabe's hair today).

We are very excited for this new tool in Isabella's life. Her prosthesis is an awesome piece of equipment and (used correctly) an invaluable instrument in aiding her in her development. I feel SO fortunate and grateful that Bella is getting the opportunity to use one.

01/04/10: Isabella getting a plaster cast made of her arm so her prosthesis will fit her perfectly (plus a little growing room).

01/12/10: Isabella getting to try on a molding of her prosthesis first without (pic 1), then with (pic 2, 3) a prototype of the arm's machinery (no glove).02/03/10: Showing off her new arm and clapping her hands! She loves to hold both arms up in the air and yell "Ta-Da!!!"