Jim Ashworth-Beaumont

Well, prosthetics, I think everybody would know, is the field where you're restituting the limb.

And so that includes the actual structure itself, but also the function.

So in some cases, it's very simple, using old fashioned techniques.

And at the other end of the spectrum, we're using advanced neurophysiological techniques to try and transfer information between the body and the environment.

Oh, yeah, it's a tough one.

You have to go all the way back to the Greeks to try and figure this one out.

So orthotics is really a means to make straight.

So it's pre-date surgery, I suppose, you could say.

For example, in the field, you fall over and break a leg, you get two bits of wood, strap it around the limb, and you have a splint, a brace of support, which delivers stability and enables you to function.

OK.

Absolutely.

We call it an orthosis, but many people call it an orthotic device.

I think it's the capacity to enable people to carry on a normal life or to achieve goals that they always wouldn't be able to or hadn't even thought of, for example.

Today, I've chosen to wear an arm that enables me to move the elbow and the wrist and the hand using impulses from the muscles in my residual limb.

My residual limb is a stump.

That's right.

Yeah.

So I lost my arm just below the level of the humerus, really.

So I have about 10 centimetres of arm left.

The prosthetic device connects to that and electrodes on the prosthetic enable me to control the components in the limb using impulses from the muscles.