Using 3D printers to create prosthetic limbs for Ugandans

12 hours ago by Patchen Barss Professor Matt Ratto with a conventional prosthetic (at left) and (at right) one printed by his lab. Credit: Ginger Coons

A University of Toronto lab is partnering with an international NGO and a Ugandan hospital to use 3-D scanning and printing to speed the process of creating and fitting sockets for artificial limbs.

While three-dimensional printing has been around for some time, a new generation of fast, cheap 3-D printers offers up a world of possibilities for highly-customized products.

Prosthetic limbs are a natural application for the technology. Although they can be mass-produced, prostheses must be customized to suit a recipient's individual physiology. Traditional assessing and fitting procedures take many days or weeks, and require specialized knowledge of an on-site prosthetic technician.

"The major issue with prosthetics in the developing world is not access to the materials of prosthetics; it is access to the expert knowledge required to form and create them," says Matt Ratto, a professor in the Faculty of Information. "We're lacking prosthetic technicians, not prosthetics themselves."

Today, though, a 3-D scan of a Ugandan's residual limb can be sent within seconds to another part of the world where a prosthetist can digitally design a replacement, sending that file back to Africa to be printed. Printers are increasingly sophisticated, capable of using a wide range of resins and polymers to create three-dimensional objects.

The implications of such a system are many, but one is the capacity to make a prosthesis in less than 24 hours. For many Ugandans, speed is more than a matter of convenience; it's the difference between getting a prosthetic limb or not.

"The underserved population is largely rural," said ginger coons (who spells her name in lower-case), a PhD student in Ratto's lab. "People have to come to the hospital. Not many can afford the long stay. We want to make their stay a lot shorter."

Ratto and coons hope that what they learn from the Uganda project will help them develop similar solutions in other parts of the world.

Their research also explores the increasing blurriness between physical and virtual realms. While the loss of a leg and its replacement with an artificial limb are fundamentally bodily experiences, the body scans and prosthetic designs are digital.

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Using 3D printers to create prosthetic limbs for Ugandans