Friday, May 26, 2017

Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain



The article “Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain” By Tanya Lewis was a well written article with a few down sides. The author of the article made a heading which catches the eye. As I, have a personal connection with amputations and prosthetics since my grandfather had an amputation and has a fake leg so I was tempted to see what was going on. Throughout the article, the research and reference to the subject was mainly referred to two test subjects, a group of surgeons, and one scientist. This information is from only one company, there is proof to announce to the world saying that you can bring back sense to the amputated arm and/or limb. The data collected was only about how good the product was and that according to the article, there was not a single mention about how there might be side effects or that something bad will happen. Throughout the whole article, there weren’t any step by step procedures of how they were able to make the product.
Basically this article was about the ability to have feeling when you add a prosthetic body part. When an amputation occurs, you lose all sensation in the area of the surgery. As of late, there has been new light that has showed that with special equipment you can bring back these feelings. For example, the new prosthetics gave the people feelings where if they held an item it would feel the same if they held it in the normal hand or the same for texture. One of the many things that really ruin a person is the knowledge that they lost the feeling in their arm to bring it back is a beautiful thing. After an amputation has occurred there have been reports of phantom pains. Phantom pains are pains that are felt after the surgery is done of the preexisting problem and any new ones around the area. With the development of these new prosthetics these scientists have found that the phantom pains go away.
The author of the article actually works for the company creating this project. She has been working for the company for a year now and specializes in writing stories about neuroscience. Lewis included one passage in the article where Tony says, “We don't believe the way we're stimulating the nerves is exactly natural, but if there's something close, the brain likes to interpret it as something it knows.” This shows that the scientists don’t know a 100% what's happening to the body and how it reacts to the new things that are getting attached. The author did a good job of answering most of the big questions to help readers, but she didn’t include some questions like how much it will cost, or how durable it is, or if it comes in contact with water, is your body in danger of getting a shock? These were some important questions that would ensure safety to people, and safety comes first. the author doesn’t explain the research that was put together in order for this to be successful. Going back to the quote in the previous paragraph, it may cause problems if the scientists don’t know what is happening when the complete the operation.
At the end of the article, the conclusion was mediocre. By the end of the article, the author describes how the subject said that there was almost no pain in his arm after the new change and the conclusion is in the category while wrapping up the sub-topic and the whole article. When the conclusion was written, I was convinced that the new advancement in prosthetics was going to help future people and that with only a few more years of finishing work, they can create a product that can sense many more textures and that too technology will help them cruise along. One main thing that convinced me that this was real was that there was a video showing a test subject name the certain texture against the amputated hand while it was wired to his arm.

3 comments:

  1. Alisa Fominykh
    Mr. Ippolito
    Biology 10H D Odd
    May 30, 2017

    Lewis, Tanya. "Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain." LiveScience. Purch, 08 Oct. 2014. Web. 29 May 2017. .

    This week I read my classmate Nathan’s current event which is about the article “Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain” by Tanya Lewis. The article is about how a prosthetic hand thanks to recent research had the ability to restore touch to what used to be a senseless hand. I think Nathan did a good job explaining why he chose this specific article since it shows the connection between this advancement and the world. Second, his summary was nicely done since it utilized a good balance of quotes and analyzing of the text. Finally, his critique of the article is also good because his criticisms were the same ones I came up with after reading his summary in the sense I agree the article should have incorporated more details about the side effects or other information about the topic.
    One thing I believe Nathan should have improved upon was that he should have created a citation since that is crucial for a current event and his write up was lacking that. Since in order for me to do this write up I had to find the citation on my own. Second, he should have edited over his summer more since there were some instances when the first word of the sentence was not capitalized when it should have been, indicating a grammatical error. Same can be said for word in the middle of the sentence which appear capitalized although they are not supposed to be that way.
    I chose this article review to read since I was intrigued by the title since one major aspect of prosthetics has to do with how the feeling is lost in that specific body part. But if an aspect of sense can be restored that is great progress in the medical field, since it can allow for individuals who can no longer “touch” to regain a sense that they have been longing to retrieve.

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  2. Luke Redman
    Mr. Ippolito
    Biology 10H
    May 30th, 2017

    Lewis, Tanya. "Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain." LiveScience. Purch, 08 Oct. 2014. Web. 29 May 2017. .

    For this week’s current event, I read Nathan’s review of the article titled “Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain” by Tanya Lewis. The article is about how scientists have developed prosthetics that have restored feeling to the missing limbs of amputees. Nathan did a great job of explaining why he chose this article over the others. His summary of the article was a great length, giving the information while not being too long. Finally, his criticisms of the article were very well-founded, with concerns about the side effects of the prosthetic and more information on the topic itself. However, there were some errors that could have been fixed in Nathan’s article. He forgot to include a proper citation in his article so I had to include my own citation. This is one of the most crucial parts of the review so it was surprising to see it was not present. He also had many grammatical errors in his review, with beginnings of sentences not capitalized. However, Nathan taught me about the abilities of modern medicine, and how far we have come from 10 years ago. I hope to read more of Nathan’s reviews.

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  3. Kathryn Haggerty
    Mr.Ippolito
    Biology 10H C Block Odd
    September 13, 2018


    Lewis, Tanya. “Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain.” LiveScience. Purch, 08 Oct. 2014. Web. 29 May 2017. .


    For this week's current event, I read Nathan Revadigars commentary of the article “Prosthetic Hand Restores Touch, Heals Phantom Pain” by Tanya Lewis. This article is about the ability to having feeling from a new prosthetic body part. The fact that these new prosthetic can take away “phantom pains” shows how technological developed the world is becoming. In my opinion, Nathan did a great job of explaining why he specifically choose this topic and how it related to himself on a personal note. Secondly, his summary was not too long and was able to share the majority of the facts in the article in its a few sentences. This made it not only easier to read but to understand as a whole. Finally, his criticism of the article was very beneficial in the way that the questions that he had towards the article related to mine. In addition, he was very blunt in his opinions which brings out the true errors of an article.
    However, there were also a few mistakes that Nathan made throughout his current event. Firstly, he completely forgot to add a citation on the article, which made it harder for me to fully understand what he was writing about. In addition, I also had to create the citation for myself which was not needed. Secondly, the grammatical errors throughout the write up were substantial. From not capitalizing the first word of the sentence to randomly capitalizing a random word in the sentence, Nathan surely did not read over his article after writing it.
    On a side note, everybody makes mistakes and there was an ultimate reason why I choose this article to review. Regardless of the pros and cons of this review, I believe that Nathan did a great job in not only choosing this article but relating it to himself. I choose this review because the fact that in losing a body part you can gain a new one, shows how much progress we have made over the years. Medicine continues to improve on a daily basis and that places hope in the world to defeat battles that we never could of imagine defeating many years ago.

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