A new design system of below-limb prostheses - the role of a visual prosthetic designer (original) (raw)
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Aesthetics of prosthesis design is a field of research investigating the visual aspect of the devices as a factor connected to the emotional impact in prosthetic users. In this chapter we present a revised concept of perception and use of prosthetic devices by offering a view of 'creative product' rather than 'medical device' only. Robotic-looking devices are proposed as a way of promoting a new and fresh perception of amputation and prosthetics, where 'traditional' uncovered or realistic devices are claimed not to respond with efficacy to the aesthetic requirements of a creative product. We aim to promote a vision for a change in the understanding of amputation-and disability in general-by transforming the concept of Disability to Super-ability, and to propose the use of attractive-looking prosthetic forms for promoting this process.
The Aesthetics Of Prosthetic Design: From Theory To Practice
Aesthetics of prosthetic devices is an emerging academic field, concerned with the visual attraction of a particularly intimate category of medical device. Our belief is that prosthetic users can gain psychological well-being when wearing prostheses perceived as aesthetically pleasing. This research focusses on exploring the concept of “concinnity” for below-knee prostheses, and develops current aesthetic theory in this area by considering elements and principles of visual design. The applicability of these to practice has been illustrated through two case studies of conceptual designs.
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Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science, 2016
This paper proposes a new User-Centred data-collection methodology based on the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) for the aesthetic design of below-knee prostheses. The innovation of this methodology is to propose a measurable approach guiding the designer to detect latent emotional needs of interviewed prosthetic users to be translated into measurable aesthetic issues to reproduce in their customized devices. This work is situated within the Kansei Engineering framework and is part of a more comprehensive study for the revision of aesthetic prosthetic design. The data of this paper are based on face to face interviews and the results were translated into a set of design principles and elements classifying the statements of the users. This methodology aims to stand as an initiative for a new design system for the improvement of the emotional User Experience of prosthetic usersand to consequently provide products to be positively accepted by the users for the improvement of their body image.
Body Image and Prosthetic Aesthetics
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The success of the London 2012 Paralympic not only revealed new public possibilities for the disabled, but also thrust the debates on the relationship between elite Paralympians and advanced prosthetic technology into the spotlight. One of the Paralympic stars, Oscar Pistorius, in particular became celebrated as 'the Paralympian cyborg'. Also prominent has been Aimee Mullins, a former Paralympian, who become a globally successful fashion model by seeking to establish a new bodily aesthetic utilizing non-organic body parts. This paper examines how the modern discourse of prosthesis has shifted from the made-up and camouflaged body to the empowered and exhibited body to create a new cultural sensitivity of body image -prosthetic aesthetics. Prosthetic aesthetics oscillates between two polarized sensitivities: attractiveness/'coolness', which derive from the image of a perfect human-machine synthetic body, and abjection/uncanny which is evoked by the actual materiality of the lived body incorporating a lifeless human-made body part.
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2020
The previous study on design for disabled people has indicates that product development for trans-radial amputees should integrate designer’s reflection in identifying significant variables such as the real needs of their users, functionality, ergonomic aspect, and aesthetic. Hence, this paper intends to re-assess the design needs of trans-radial amputees through an observation study with 15 trans-radial amputees (right side). The observation aims to understand the difficulties that occurred in the daily activities of amputees, in their home situation without the help of prosthesis. The result of the study suggests the amputees’ main struggle in their daily activities; preparing meals and eating independently. Therefore, a few design criteria have been proposed, and the prototype design was successfully developed as a proposal for potential future development and production. It is hoped the outcome of this research help to surpass the kind of device constrained to help amputees prep...
Prosthetic Configurations and Imagination: Dis/ability, Body, and Technology
Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 2018
Prosthesis has been a useful medium for thinking about the identity of people with disabilities, who often rely on artificial devices in their daily lives. Recent advances in technology have altered the biological body via so-called enhancement technologies, which can augment bodily forms and functions to improve human characteristics. Given its corrective abilities, prosthesis has become the "interconstitutive" point which links body and machine, blurring the borderline between normal and abnormal, abled and disabled, human and cyborg. People with disabilities are no longer the only ones using prostheses to fix their bodily deficiencies; non-disabled people need them even more to modify their "imperfect" bodies. Being human, as Lennard Davis points out, has become "an aspect of supplementarity" (69). The essay will take a biocultural approach to the study of the scientificized and medicalized body to construct a dialectical discourse between ableism and dis/ability, the natural body and the artificial hybrid, humanity and technology, and related issues. Concurrently critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, the essay lays out a balanced and complex picture of the merging of flesh, machine, and subject, and, by doing so, offers a reconceptualization of dis/ability and post/humanity in a futurist society from the perspectives of materiality, metaphoricity, and reflexivity of prosthetics.
Pakistan BioMedical Journal
Amputation is known as the surgical removal of the body part. Amputation occurs as a result of many conditions. The most common reason is poor blood circulation which results in a result of narrowing or damage of arteries. Objective: To determine the correlation between mobility restriction, body image perception and prosthesis satisfaction among lower-limb amputee prosthesis users. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 63 participants after taking consent from IRB from University of Lahore. The data was collected from PSRD, Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital of Lahore. Both males and female amputees were included with 18 to 60 years. Data was collected by using TAPES, Amputee body image scale and amputee mobility predictor assessment scale. Results: The results showed that the average age out of 63 amputees were 39.37. Female were 21 (33.3%) and male were 42 (66.7%). According to result people with below the knee amputation had more mobility (20.00), more satisfaction le...
The needs of below-knee amputees, in terms of the aesthetics of their prostheses, receive little or no attention. Failure to address this issue could create dissatisfaction with the body image of amputees. This paper seeks to explore different aspects of the psychological issues and wellbeing of users by focusing on the hypothesis that the level of realism in prostheses is linked to multiple factors, i.e. the time elapsed since amputation and acceptance of limb loss. Specifically, we highlight the positive role of using artificial-looking devices for promoting the self-confidence of wearers during the second phase post-amputation, and the use of cosmetic devices in the first phase. The data derives from a closed ended questionnaire, email exchanges with users and an in-depth literature review. The paper constitutes a contribution to research on the “aesthetics of prosthetic devices” by taking into account the dynamics behind the psychological distress and well-being of prosthetic users.
“My Leg is a Giant Stiletto Heel”: Fashioning the Prosthetised Body
Fashion Theory: Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, 2019
Fashion and prosthetics may appear at first glance to be unlikely bedfellows. Yet a tiny number of pioneering fashion scholars (Vainshtein 2012, Hall and Orzada 2013) have begun to extend the concept of adornment beyond recognized forms of dress and examine items that were hitherto perceived as belonging to the medical domain. This paper embraces a similar outlook and expands upon the currently available research. It considers how the amputee body is incorporated into the visual mainstream through the use of new generation “fashionable” prostheses, and how – and if – such prostheses can help to disrupt dominant discourses of normalcy. To do this, we study visual representations of three amputee artists and public figures: British performer Viktoria Modesta, American athlete, model and speaker Aimee Mullins and Japanese artist Mari Katayama. We argue that the use of aesthetic prostheses de-medicalizes disabled bodies and instead constructs them as consumer bodies, granting them what disability scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson calls “the freedom to be appropriated by consumer culture” and “integrating a previously excluded group into the dominant order” (2004, 96). We then turn to the few images of disability that subvert such order, by engaging with prostheses creatively or by rejecting them altogether and celebrating unadorned stumps. KEYWORDS: fashion, disability, prosthetics, amputees, non-normative bodies