MIGHT AS WELL, THE ALL-LOVING GOD SURE WON'T HELP PEOPLE AT ALL

WHY WON'T THE ALL-POWERFUL SKY PIXIE HEAL AMPUTEES ?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/09/14/bionic.arm.ap/index.html

DAYTON, Tennessee (AP) -- Jesse Sullivan has two prosthetic arms, but he can

climb a ladder at his house and roll on a fresh coat of paint. He's also

good with a weed-whacker, bending his elbow and rotating his forearm to

guide the machine.

He's even mastered a more sensitive maneuver -- hugging his grandchildren.

(Watch Sullivan's bionic arm in action -- :41)

The motions are coordinated and smooth because his left arm is a bionic

device controlled by his brain. He thinks, "Close hand," and electrical

signals sent through surgically re-routed nerves make it happen.

Doctors describe Sullivan as the first amputee with a thought-controlled

artificial arm.

Researchers encouraged Sullivan, who became an amputee in an industrial

accident, not to go easy on his experimental limb.

"When I left, they said don't bring it back looking new," the 59-year-old

Sullivan said with a grin, his brow showing sweat beneath a fraying

Dollywood amusement park cap. At times he had been so rough with the bionic

arm that it broke, including once when he pulled the end off starting a

lawnmower.

That prompted researchers to make improvements, part of a U.S. government

initiative to refine artificial limbs that connect body and mind. The

National Institutes of Health has supported the research, joined more

recently by the military's research-and-development wing, the Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency. Some 411 U.S. troops in Iraq and 37 in

Afghanistan have had wounds that cost them at least one limb, the Army

Medical Command says.

Although work that created Sullivan's arm preceded the research by DARPA, he

said he's proud to test a type of bionic arm that soldiers could someday

use. "Those guys are heroes in my book," he said, "and they should have the

best there is."

"We're excited about collaborating with the military," said the developer of

Sullivan's arm, Dr. Todd Kuiken, director of neuroengineering at the Center

for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, one of 35

partners now in a DARPA project to develop a state-of-the-art arm.

Sullivan's bionic arm represents an advance over typical artificial arms,

like the right-arm prosthesis he uses, which has a hook and operates with

sequential motions. There is no perceivable delay in the motions of

Sullivan's flesh-colored, plastic-like left arm. Until now, it has been

nearly impossible to recreate the subtle and complex motion of a human arm.

"It is not as smooth as a normal arm but it works much smoother than a

normal prosthesis," Kuiken said. (Watch the bionic arm's range of motion --

2:46)

Sullivan lost his arms in May 2001 working as a utility lineman. He suffered

electrical burns so severe that doctors had to amputate both his arms at the

shoulder. (THE COLD-HEARTED BASTARD CHRISTIAN GOD, BUSY AS USUAL)

Seven weeks later, due to what Sullivan calls being in the right place at

the right time, he was headed to meet the Chicago researchers.

"Jesse is an absolutely remarkable human being, with or without his

injuries," Kuiken said.

Sullivan said his bionic arm isn't much like the one test pilot Steve Austin

got in the '70s TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man." "I don't really feel

superhuman or anything," he said.

"It's not magic," added his 4-year-old grandson, Luke Westlake, as he placed

a nut in Sullivan's grip and challenged Paw-Paw to crack it open.

What is the 'bionic arm'?

Not magic but high-tech science makes the bionic arm work. A procedure

called "muscle reinnervation," developed by Kuiken and used on five

additional patients so far, is the key.

For Sullivan, it involved grafting shoulder nerves, which used to go to his

arms, to his pectoral muscle. The grafts receive thought-generated impulses,

and the muscle activity is picked up by electrodes. These relay the signals

to the arm's computer, which causes motors to move the elbow and hand,

mimicking a normal arm.

"The nerves grow into the chest muscles, so when the patient thinks, 'Close

hand,' a portion of the chest muscle contracts," according to an institute

fact sheet.

Kuiken added: "Basically it is connecting the dots. Finding the nerves. We

have to free the nerves and see how far they reach" and connect to muscles.

About three months after the surgery, Sullivan first noticed voluntary

twitches in his pectoral muscle when he tried to bend his missing elbow, the

institute said. By five months, he could activate four different areas of

his major pectoral muscle.

Trying to flex his missing elbow would cause a strong contraction of the

muscle area just beneath the clavicle. When he mentally closed his missing

hand, a signal could be detected on the pectoral region below the clavicle,

and when he tried to open his hand there was a separate signal. Extending

his elbow and hand caused a contraction of the lower pectoral muscle.

When Sullivan's chest was touched he "had a sensation of touch to different

parts of his hand and arm," the institute said. "The patient had substituted

sensation of touch, graded pressure, sharp-dull and thermal sensation."

Sullivan said of the thought-controlled arm: "When I use the new prosthesis

I just do things. I don't have to think about it."

Better than conventional prosthetic

Kuiken describes the procedure on Sullivan as the first time such a graft

has been used to control an artificial limb.

Gregory Clark, associate professor of bioengineering and prosthetics

researcher at the University of Utah, agreed, adding that a conventional

prosthetic limb is "limited in a number of ways in the types of movements.

Moreover, it can do only one of those movements at any particular moment."

Clark said a natural arm is capable of 22 discrete movements. Sullivan's

bionic limb is capable of four right now, though researchers are working to

make them better.

"Four is wonderful," Clark said.

Sullivan said his bionic arm allows him to rotate his upper arm, bend his

elbow, rotate his wrist, and open and close his hand -- in some instances

simultaneously.

Sullivan to appear with first 'bionic' woman

He and Kuiken attended a Washington, D.C., news conference Thursday with

Claudia Mitchell, the first woman to receive the bionic arm. (Watch Mitchell

with her new bionic arm -- 2:57)

The 26-year-old Mitchell was injured in a motorcycle accident after she left

the Marines in 2004. (Watch how prosthetics can improve the life of

amputees -- :41)

Trying his new arm at increasingly challenging tasks, Sullivan acknowledges

he has good days and bad ones.

"At first, I couldn't watch when he tried doing this stuff," said Sullivan's

wife of 22 years, Carolyn.

She said she first thought after the accident that he was going to die. She

gave up her catering business to tend to him around the clock.

But eventually he forced her to occasionally run errands and leave him

alone.

"He finally got mad and yelled at me and told me to go to the store," she

said, laughing.

Enormous lifestyle adjustments that the injuries and rehabilitation required

were not as hard as might be expected, she said.

"For some reason, we just sort of rolled into it. I just knew he wasn't

going to let anything keep him down," she said.

She said medication helps control his pain, and sometimes he resorts to self

hypnosis. "They taught him how to do that," she said, adding she doesn't

consider herself to be a caretaker.

"I do all the yard work," Jesse Sullivan said. "I take out the garbage."

He can even hold a fork to eat.

And there's another task the bionic grandfather of 10 looks forward to

mastering: casting a fishing line.

AT least he doesn't worship the crock of shit christian god anymore.