Cutting-edge devices
Invictus Games about sport, but also a showcase for some high-tech prosthetics
The Invictus Games in Toronto are not only focusing attention on military veterans and the lifealtering injuries they have suffered, but the event is also shining a spotlight on some cutting-edge technology that allows them to compete and go forward with their everyday lives.
From bionic prosthetics to “smart” braces that return mobility to those who have lost a limb or injured their spine, there has been an explosion of innovative assistive devices aimed at improving the lives of both soldiers injured in combat or training accidents and civilians who have become disabled through trauma or disease.
Retired master cpl. Mike (Megatraun) Trauner is among those being helped by technological advances in the rehab devices field, in his case an “intelligent” lower limb prosthetic that uses high-tech sensors that anticipate and help him execute his movements.
In December 2008, Trauner was part of a 200-man foot patrol in Afghanistan, when he was caught in a blast from a remotecontrolled IED that blew off parts of both legs, shattered the bones in his left arm and hand and sent shrapnel rocketing into his eyes.
In an instant, his life was irrevocably altered in “every aspect you can imagine,” said the 19-year veteran, a member of the 3rd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, Canadian Light Infantry.
“When I got injured, everything’s taken away from you — everything from walking to standing to running to sitting,” said Trauner, 38, of Pembroke, Ont. “The list goes on and on.”
But technology — in the form of prosthetics made by Germanbased company Ottobock — has given him back his life.
Trauner wears an Ottobock X3 prosthetic on his left residual limb, which was amputated above the knee, that contains a microprocessor that mimics the movements of the missing joint.
“I’m walking and it thinks as I’m walking,” he explained. “It’s almost like it’s artificial intelligence. It knows what I’m doing all the time, so it makes it very safe to walk.”
In all, the devices set him back more than $130,000, but their benefits are priceless.
“They give me the ability to basically be human again,” said Trauner, who competed this week at the Invictus Games, coming fifth in hand-cycling and taking double-gold in stationary rowing, both sports performed without his prosthetics.
Dr. Steven Dilkas, co-chief medical officer for the Invictus Games, said about 80 per cent of amputations are related to diabetes or vascular disease, with about five to 10 per cent resulting from trauma, such as blast injuries to soldiers during combat and limb-destroying wounds to civilians involved in motor vehicle accidents. Such occurrences as infection, cancer and congenital conditions make up the remainder.
“As technology improves and gets more reasonable in price, I think more and more people will be able to benefit from these types of devices.”
Liz Steeves,
32, is another Invictus Games participant who is benefiting from advances in the rehab devices field, in her case a motorized “dermoskeleton” that straps on her leg and allows her to engage in everyday activities “like anybody else.”
In 2010, as a mobile support equipment operator in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Steeves was injured - she fell almost four metres, head-first off a wall during a training exercise and crushed a few vertebrae in her upper spine and broke others in her lower back.
Steeves, who lives in Sooke, B.C., was medically released from the RCAF last year because of her injuries, which had left her virtually house-bound.
But that all changed when her leg was fitted with a Keeogo, a $50,000 device made by B-TEMIA Inc. in Quebec. The Keeogo uses sensors at the knee and hip joints to detect the movement the person wants to make, then provides the assistance needed to execute the motion.
“I’ve gone from somebody who thought that they were just going to get old and grey and die ... to being able to do everything that everybody else can do, from skydiving, which I did with the Keeogo not too long ago, to possibly embracing climbing a few mountains here in the future.”