Development and Optimization of Low-Cost Upper Limb Prostheses produced with Additive Manufacturing

Tese de mestrado integrado, Engenharia Biomédica e Biofísica (Engenharia Clínica e Instrumentação Médica) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2020Many times, upper-limb prosthetic devices specially developed for children arise as a concern of parents whose children have congenital handicaps and want to start using a device. In this per- spective, the aim of this work is to develop fully functional body powered, low-cost upper-limb prostheses, customizable for each child and evaluate the 3D printed technology for this purpose. There is a clear gap in devices designed for children. They need to be affordable, since children are constantly growing and there is a risk of breaking them while playing. Cosmetic devices have no function and electric-powered devices are very costly, and not accessible to every family. Thus, 3D printing body-powered prosthetic devices seem to be a good option. The e-NABLE community is a worldwide group of individuals who are using their 3D print- ers to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those in need of an upper limb assistive device. All designs are open source, which allows people who have access to a 3D printer to download the designs and print their own prostheses at a low cost. This work was carried out in Patient Innovation, in the scope of the "Give a Hand" project. This project’s mission is to adapt open-source designs and 3D printed prostheses customized for children (between 3 and 12 years old) who do not have a hand or arm and give it to them for free. In this work, two upper limb 3D printed prostheses were developed for two different cases studies (5 years old, right hand and 10 years old, left hand). These 3D printed upper limb prosthetic devices (created by e-NABLE) are affordable and relatively fast to produce. They can be seen as the first prosthesis of a child and their main purpose is to give power to the child to decide, in his/her adult life if he/she would like to have a device