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Bionic Devices: No Longer a Science-fiction Fantasy

 
By Dana Kochnower
FOXBusiness
     
    Bionic Hand

    It’s not quite the $6 million man, but bionic devices are no longer a science-fiction fantasy.

    In the year since launching the iLimb hand, Scottish company Touch Bionics--a maker of upper-limb prosthetics--has undergone an aggressive expansion into the U.S. 

    The i-LIMB Hand has five individually-powered digits and is made of high-strength plastics.

    In May 2008 Touch Bionics acquired the complete operations of LIVINGSKIN, which makes prosthetic skin to cover the iLimb.

    In an interview with FOX Business Morning, Touch Bionics CEO Stuart Mead said more than 330 patients in 23 countries have been fitted for the hand, which costs about $60,000, a cost Mead says is increasingly being covered by insurance.

    Click here to watch Mead on FOX Business Morning

    FOXBusiness.com interviewed iLimb patient Keiron McCammon about his experience with the bionic hand.

    Watch the clip below watch Keiron demonstrate the iLimb bionic hand.

    After losing his hand in a paragliding accident in 2006, McCammon was determined to resume his active life. Within a few months of the accident, McCammon hit the slopes with his snowboard. In the two years since, he has resumed scuba diving, playing the guitar and has started a new venture, www.onehandedblogger.com.

    McCammon said the blog came as an epiphany of sorts while in the hospital when his wife was having a hard time finding stories from other people who had gone through similar experiences.

    He says he hopes charting his recovery and sharing how he overcomes the challenges of one-handed living can help others. 

    Two-and-a-half years after losing his hand, McCammon says he ultimately discovered “if you have the right attitude if you have the right mind you can get on to anything you want to do… and when you look back you say life hasn’t really changed. “