Question
How did you decide to make the cutaneous anchor system as an alternative to the harness for upper limb prosthetic use?
Answer
Thank you for asking about that. I will tell you about it. This is technology that I created. As a user of prosthetic technology, I myself have experienced overuse. Quite honestly in the 58 plus years that I have used a prosthesis, I have never liked the harness. At different points along the way I tried to think of other ways of access body power that would eliminate that. Ultimately, I thought about the scapula and the access from scapular movement. I realized that we could actually access body power from that. But how to do it?
I started thinking about stickers. I was a pediatric therapist at the time in a hospital setting. I used stickers a lot and I realized that adhesives had come a long way. I started experimenting with adhesives in the area of the scapula on myself, and it ended up leading to this technology called the cutaneous anchor technology. It holds two patents, one for the technology itself and the other is for the whole method of use because apparently no one thought of it before this.
Shriners Hospital for Children owns the technology, and they gave me the license to market and manufacture it, which I do through my company Single Handed Solutions. TRS, the company in Boulder, Colorado is one of the companies, and the only company in the United States that carries it. There is a company in Canada and one in Europe that carries it.
It is an alternative to the user of prosthetic technology to activate their terminal device or to help keep the device on. I have used this for individuals with hand loss as well as whole arm loss, both above and below the elbow.
