Hello readers, welcome back to part 2 of totally armless, in this part I will be going through the negative side of robotic prosthesis.

Robotic prosthesis offers a large amount of advantages however as always there are also downsides on the other side . Some of the downsides of robotic prosthesis is that majority of the time, in order to incorporate robotics more surgery is required. In most cases further amputation is required to properly fit the robotics to the appropriate nerves. As part of the operation process, a brain chip is also required in order to communication with the robotic limb. This has to be implanted on the brain which may cause scar tissues as the brain heals around the chip.

Up until this point robotic prosthesis is still under heavy development and therefore the cosmetics for this technology is not currently under consideration, and solely in development for practical use and comfort for the user. Though because of this obvious robotic limb being shown in the public, because of the transparent difference between flesh and metal, it may draw the gaze of people around them. The amputee may already have insecurities about their new prosthetic and the constant glare may further increase this insecurity.

With all of the additional surgeries and the implementation process, it makes the average cost for surgery (for a robotic hand) around $11,000, which might cost someone an arm and a leg. Another issue in regards to the price is that robotic limbs are not insured by any of the health organisations, which is especially problematic for those with a low income.

Even though it gives the amputee the ability to make movements which they have lost, there are currently some flaws in the technology that is currently out. Such flaws are that the user has to manually send signals to the limb to recreate movement which is a difficult task and require a great deal of training and rehabilitation. The prosthetic itself is quite heavy and requires an equally large power source to operate. Another set of flaws with robotic prosthesis is that it requires  a lot of maintenance and, being robotic it has to be charged and doesn't mix well with water.

So even though there it is a much needed advancement in prosthesis, because this technology is still under development there is going to innately be many issues that need to be solved before it gets widely released and commercially available. The main issue for when development is finished and globally available is going to be the cost required for having a robotic limb.

Thank you for reading and in the next series of totally armless we will be going over the benefits of robotic prothesis, stay tuned readers.

References

Disadvantages - Mitchell robotic limbs (no date) Available at: https://sites.google.com/a/cortland.edu/mitchell-robotic-limbs/disad (Accessed: 26 August 2016).

JSellman and profile, V. my complete (2011) ‘Robotic Prosthetic limbs’, 28 February. Available at: http://justinsellmansitproject.blogspot.co.uk/ (Accessed: 26 August 2016).
News (no date) Available at: http://dev.nsta.org/evwebs/1051a/Current_Tech/default.html (Accessed: 26 August 2016).