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Dr Elena Seminati
If you have an amputation, you need a prosthetic limb in order to be able to walk or to do everything that you need to do with your limbs. So to wear a prosthesis, you need an interface between the prosthesis and your receiver limb. So that's reason why you need a socket, something that is personalised for the shape of the limb that is missing. And it has to be designed quickly so that you are able to come back to a normal life as soon as possible.
Alex Lewis
My name is Alex Lewis, and I became a quadruple amputee back in 2013 due to a rare case of invasive group A strep. The socket bit when I was first in Roehampton 2014, it took between sort of four and five weeks to get it right. And obviously, for an amputee, you want to be wearing the prosthetic, you want to be beginning to understand how it's going to help your life to regain your independence. So it took a long, long time, it was lots of iterations of sanding down the socket internally, lots of different test sockets, and then lots of tweaks to the final socket. So it was a long and labour process.
Dr Elena Seminati
When we scan in the middle like Alex, using a 3d scanner, we collect a lot of pictures. And then the software is able to put all these pictures together in order to create a 3d shape of the receivable limb that can be visualised on the screen and then can be used to replicate the shape and create a socket for the amputee. For the clinician, this is really beneficial because the output of the 3d scanner will give them a real and accurate representation of the 3d shape and volume of the receivable limb of the patient.
Dr Nicola Bailey
When I met Alex, I was just starting to get into research in the area of prosthetics. And it was really great to speak to a user to find out what their actual needs are. And we can develop some technology to really address these needs. The aim of this project is to replicate what these expensive and very precise scanners can do within a clinical environment and take this into the person's home. So we're using their mobile phone or a camera that they already have, and develope some technology around this. So whether it's some software, or whether we have to adapt the mobile phone, so I think sort of accessory onto it, in order to be able to capture this data. The impact would be enormous. It would cut down on the amount of travel they have to do, it will really help with the the timeframe as well as the effect that has on a person. So we're really excited about the potential both in the UK as well as further afield. So for example, in developing countries where they don't have access to this technology, currently,
Alex Lewis
My hope with researchers in the grant is that we can cut that time period down. I don't see why it takes so long in that traditional system. And I think we need to adapt and understand new and more modern techniques to give the patient a much better outcome really.