Pinpointing of an Upper Limb Prosthesis

Abstract

The case of a 42-year-old right-handed man with a right forearm amputation who has made skillful use of his work arm in using a personal computer was reported. His work arm consists of a single wall socket, which envelops the stump of his arm near the mid-humerus, a nine-figure harness, and a -stick. He can tap all the computer keys with his work arm without seeing the keyboard and feels touch sense at the tip of his work arm. I postulated that this ability depends on the neural mechanism coding for the formation of body schema involving stumps and prostheses.