Project team
- Karthikeyan Kandan, De Montfort University (UK)
- Arjan Buis, University of Strathclyde (UK)
- Amit Singh, Malaviya National Institute of Technology (India)
- Pooja Mukul, Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (India)
- Farukh Farukh, De Montfort University (UK)
- Sarah Day, University of Strathclyde (UK)
- P.K. Lenka, National Institute for Locomotor Disabilities (India)
UN Sustainable Development Goals addressed
- Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being
- Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
- Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Abstract
The World Health Organisation estimates that 650 million people worldwide are disabled and around 80% of those currently live in Low- and Middle-Income countries (LMICs). Less than 3% of the persons with disabilities in LMICs have access to require the rehabilitation services. Without access to required rehabilitation, those with disability may become entrenched in a cycle of poverty.
In order to tackle the LMICs grand challenge of providing an accessible prosthetic care, a first step was taken through a GCRF networking grant to catalogue the unmet need of the amputees in LMICs using a series of networking events, organised in India, involving amputees, NGOs, prosthetists and healthcare policy makers.
The project team also successfully performed pilot trials with Indian amputee patients with ARM (Accessible Recycled Material) Prosthetic Sockets (PSs) which were fabricated using Digital 3D Shape Knitting of recycled materials (yarns made from domestic plastic waste). This pilot study showed a huge potential to fill the gap between the costly technologies for high-performance prosthesis and the technologies intended for developing countries that are of substandard quality, durability, and performance.
The principal aim for the project team is to engage in developmental collaborative research between the UK and India to scale-up and translate the success of ARM PS technologies with Majicast - a device to obtain accurate contours of a patient’s residual limbs for achieving tailor made fit that increases comfort and dramatically reduces socket fabrication time.
The consortium will engage in networking and collaborative developmental research to consolidate ARM PS technologies with Majicast to engage in patient specific large-scale trials of ARM PSs with Indian amputees to gather the evidence-base for user-acceptance. This will not only bridge research gaps between PS made for LMICs and the developed world, but will co-create new-insights into the fabrication of customized prosthetics for LMICs.
Project lead Karthikeyan Kandan said: "Repurposing and reusing upcycled plastics, as well as offering affordable prosthesis, are two major global issues which require urgent intervention.
Thanks to the RAE’s Frontiers Follow-on Funding, large-scale field trails with amputee patients residing in India have been planned to gather evidence-base for the Accessible Recycled Materials (ARM) prosthetic limbs. The principal aim for the project team is to engage in developmental collaborative research between the UK and India to scale-up and translate the success of ARM PS technologies with Majicast - a device to obtain accurate contours of a patient’s residual limbs for achieving tailor made fit that increases comfort and dramatically reduces socket fabrication time."
For more information about this project, please see:
BBC: Plastic bottles turned into 'cheap' prosthetics
Great Big Story: Turning Plastic Water Bottles Into Prosthetic Limbs