Life and Limb (P) Ltd

We will be working on supporting the core team to carry out the pilot planned for Q2-2021 with 5 patients with transradial amputation. And, to complete the product development to achieve product-market fit leading to regulatory approval of class 2 medical devices in India, thus manufacturing license and scale up by Q1-2022.

As per the ‘UN Flagship Report on Disability and Development 2018’, a person with a disability faces challenges in accessing healthcare services, both standard needs and needs linked to impairment. From the analysis, 43 countries, 42% of persons with disabilities versus 6% of persons without disabilities perceive their health as poor.

While presenting our research to a group of prosthetists and orthopedic surgeons at AIIPMR Mumbai in 2018, we were overwhelmed to see their positive feedback and the unmet need for better prostheses in INDIA, where available devices introduce body fatigue over the use and have a limited split-hook function.

At Life and Limb, we aim to provide quality rehabilitation services with innovative and low-cost prosthesis solutions to enhance the lives of people with disabilities; to provide complete assistance leading to rehabilitation of the individual driving volume linked growth, cost control efficiencies, seamless support from child to adulthood with trade-in options, focus on fixed cost amortization, thus translate the product to greater affordability.

We are a team of 11 in a micro-lab setup where we can fabricate the pilot units and have clinical validation. We have identified certification and testing required for our prosthetic hand and delighted to have support from MEITY - DST, Goverment of India for prototype development. Let's make it happen!

Through Life and Limb, we want to cater to 30% of the annual 23,500 people in INDIA with transradial amputation (below-elbow) who do not use the prosthetic hand because of the limited functions or the high cost. 

Annually 1.2 million household and road accidents result in the amputation of body parts. The 2011 census of Indian report suggests that these differently-abled people lag on social and economic development. Since people with disabilities face many problems because of several barriers in day-to-day life. Life and Limb envisage coming up with a functional prosthetic hand that will allow the day-to-day activities at a relatively lower cost than the existing commercially available products.

The proposed solution is a functional transradial prosthetic hand with 6 grip patterns which can achieve more than 15% of activities of daily living.  The product is a multi-fingered prosthetic hand consisting of a smart, single actuator, and water-resistant electronic interface with myo-control, thereby reducing the hardware complexity and the cost. Furthermore, the hand will be highly functional when performing day-to-day activities involving adaptive grasp and pinch using current thresholding which will eliminate the use of force sensors on the fingers. 

We intend to deliver the following novelties:

1.The LEGO-based design allowed modular systems that can be interchanged to include features and add-on elements like color, functional modules like haptic response feedback, etc.

2. Digital fabrication of the prosthetic socket using 3D scanning (Rhino+Grasshopper interface to automate the conversion to CAD) over the old method of making sockets, which involves measurement and casting, modification of mold, creating the test socket, fitting, and adjusting.  However, the new method of remote fitment allows us to limit user engagement to only a single point - 3D scanner is used to acquire patient data.

3. The hand is using state-of-the-art actuators and human-centric design methods to have waterproof modules of the hand, thus making the hand robust enough to sustain the Indian market

4. Customization of the hand and mimicking the human anatomical features would allow users to accept the product.

5. Compliant finger joints and NO-SCREW design would drop-resistance feature to the hand, enhancing the life of the product.

6. The arm (from elbow to wrist) is hollow since the battery is housed inside the palm of the hand, allowing varying sizes of the stump to be accommodated.

Life and Limb (P) Ltd. aims to provide a cost-effective and high-quality prosthesis solution for patient-specific fitment, with a dedicated team of professionals, and appreciated by its users. 

• Improvement in the design methodology to further reduce the cost of manufacturing of the hand and enhance ease of use. This step will also look into improving the reliability of the product.

• The development of marketing strategies could be two-pronged. The first line would be to create a marketing team that will undertake an awareness campaign to make the general public aware of our affordable product. This line will engage the middle class and the better of amputees who can afford our product from their own pockets. The second line would be to get in touch with the agencies which will provide support/aid to make this product reach the section of the society where the need for this product is much larger.

• Create a separate channel to explore export opportunities and tap into the huge market for an affordable prosthetic hand worldwide as the availability of prosthetic hands in the global market is limited and commercially available hands are too expensive to be affordable and are complex in function and maintenance.