The Next Big Thing You Missed: 3-D Printing Promises Better Bionic Limbs for the War-Wounded
David Sengeh grew up in Sierra Leone during the African country’s decade-long civil war. The horribly bloody conflict was defined not just by the enormous death toll, but by the way rebel armies systematically severed the limbs of their enemies, leaving thousands of men, women, and children with missing arms and legs. Though the war ended more than a decade ago, Sengeh says, many victims are still struggling through life with artificial limbs that are too uncomfortable to wear.
But at the famed MIT Media Lab, the 27-year-old doctoral student is now using 3-D printing and advanced math to create a new kind of artificial limb he believes can significantly improve the lives of amputees in Sierra Leone and across the rest of the world. Sengeh relies on data-backed digital models to fashion prosthetics that he says better match the contours of the human body. And because these prosthetics are fabricated by 3-D printers, he says, they become far easier to produce.
The key problem with today’s prosthetics, Sengeh says, is that they don’t fit. Many people who have lost limbs — whether they’re Sierra Leone civilians or U.S. war vets — don’t wear their prostheses because the sockets aren’t tailored to their bodies. The tools needed to make well-fitting artificial limbs today are neither affordable nor widespread. “It does not matter how powerful your prosthetic ankle is,” Senghe said on Monday during a talk at TED, the global ideas conference being held this year in Vancouver, British Columbia. “If your prosthetic socket is uncomfortable, you will not use your leg.”
