Providing a leg to stand on

MIT students are at it once again. They have come up with a cheaper more precise way to fit prosthetic legs for those in India, especially rural areas where in the past has been more difficult to reach because of lack of power.

They have created a systems where a mold is taken from the person's stump by placing the stump into a container filled with tiny glass beads and covered with soft silicone rubber, and then creating a vacuum with a hand cranked device so that the beads seal tightly around the limb. This "negative" mold is filled with more glass beads (referred to as "sand") to form a positive mold--an exact replica of the stump--and the socket of the prosthetic leg is made to fit that replica. Alternatively, the two steps can be done with plaster of paris instead of the sand--a process that doesn't require electricity but does use heavy, non-reusable plaster.

The students introduced this concept to the Jaipur Foot Organization in India. This charity is the world's largest provider of prosthetics and has worked with about a million patients since being founded in 1975. Because the JFO provides so many prosthetics, they had little time to research new options so they were very happy to see that the students at MIT may have a better solution.

Read full story here: web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-jaipur-tt0305.html