Prosthetics
Three thousand years ago, Ancient Egyptians were the first pioneers who succeeded in inventing prosthetic limbs, especially toes. They used wood and metal to construct prosthetic limbs for disabled people to replace their missing body parts by artificial ones, as mentioned by the Live Science Contributor, Charles Q. Choi, in his article, “World's First Prosthetic: Egyptian Mummy's Fake Toe”.
As technology has reached its peak, the field of prosthesis has been radically changing to the extent that it currently allows disabled people to have more varieties of options for prosthetics that are more advanced, affordable, doable, and has multiple features.
The process of creating three-dimensional object by applying multiple layers of a plastics and carbon fibers, is known as the 3D printing, has lately been used to design prosthetic arms and legs for people who were born missing a body part or has lost it due to a disease, war, natural disaster, etc.
This new technology has been improving and beautifying the life of many disabled people all over the world with an extremely affordable price to almost everyone; instead of buying a traditional prosthetic that would cost a huge amount of money. “Giving a child a new hand is like giving him or her hope to live more independently,” said Rafiq El Mansy in his article, “Designing the 3D-Printed Prosthetic Hand”.
El Mansy is a design lecturer at the Department of Arts at American University in Cairo (AUC). “Patients, especially in rural areas and refugee camps with the traditional prosthetic design process, face barriers due to many factors that include the cost of the prosthetic device, modeling and rehabilitation process, maintenance, lack of support and medical centers in rural areas,” said Elmansy.
Moreover, traditional prosthetics is not only unaffordable to many people, but also has other disadvantages too. It is much heavier than the 3D ones, due to the material used in them, which is wood and metal.
“As 3D printers become more affordable, with some available for less than $200, the possibility of anyone being able to design and print a prosthetic limb in their home or local community is rapidly becoming a reality,” said Jonathan Schwartz, the author of the article “The future of 3D-printed prosthetics”.
In Egypt, Etba3ly 3D, which is a new 3D printing service, is positioning itself to be Egypt's Leading 3D printing Service. It started providing 3D printed prosthetics service during Ramadan, as a 1-month project, but later on they decided to make it a sustainable project due to the huge amount of needs and the support that was given to them by many volunteers.
Etba3ly 3D freely offers this service for any disabled child who aims for having a better life, by teaming up with the global community, e-Nable, by which it provided them with some of the funding. e-Nable produces 3D printed prosthetics as well.
“The best moment is just giving prosthetic hand to the child so you can’t believe how, like the feeling when you just deliver this product and you see the smile on their faces and they start doing like this and like Ironman stuff,” said Mohamed El Hossary, the cofounder and the CEO of Etba3ly 3D, when he was asked about his favorite moment in the process of the prosthetics project.
Technologies has been one of the main reasons which helps differently abled people to cope with their lives in order to be able to do everything and aspire others with their accomplishments. Not only technology, but also volunteers who spend their lives in inventing technologies that would benefit the differently abled ones.
Written by Lobna El Shirbiny.
As technology has reached its peak, the field of prosthesis has been radically changing to the extent that it currently allows disabled people to have more varieties of options for prosthetics that are more advanced, affordable, doable, and has multiple features.
The process of creating three-dimensional object by applying multiple layers of a plastics and carbon fibers, is known as the 3D printing, has lately been used to design prosthetic arms and legs for people who were born missing a body part or has lost it due to a disease, war, natural disaster, etc.
This new technology has been improving and beautifying the life of many disabled people all over the world with an extremely affordable price to almost everyone; instead of buying a traditional prosthetic that would cost a huge amount of money. “Giving a child a new hand is like giving him or her hope to live more independently,” said Rafiq El Mansy in his article, “Designing the 3D-Printed Prosthetic Hand”.
El Mansy is a design lecturer at the Department of Arts at American University in Cairo (AUC). “Patients, especially in rural areas and refugee camps with the traditional prosthetic design process, face barriers due to many factors that include the cost of the prosthetic device, modeling and rehabilitation process, maintenance, lack of support and medical centers in rural areas,” said Elmansy.
Moreover, traditional prosthetics is not only unaffordable to many people, but also has other disadvantages too. It is much heavier than the 3D ones, due to the material used in them, which is wood and metal.
“As 3D printers become more affordable, with some available for less than $200, the possibility of anyone being able to design and print a prosthetic limb in their home or local community is rapidly becoming a reality,” said Jonathan Schwartz, the author of the article “The future of 3D-printed prosthetics”.
In Egypt, Etba3ly 3D, which is a new 3D printing service, is positioning itself to be Egypt's Leading 3D printing Service. It started providing 3D printed prosthetics service during Ramadan, as a 1-month project, but later on they decided to make it a sustainable project due to the huge amount of needs and the support that was given to them by many volunteers.
Etba3ly 3D freely offers this service for any disabled child who aims for having a better life, by teaming up with the global community, e-Nable, by which it provided them with some of the funding. e-Nable produces 3D printed prosthetics as well.
“The best moment is just giving prosthetic hand to the child so you can’t believe how, like the feeling when you just deliver this product and you see the smile on their faces and they start doing like this and like Ironman stuff,” said Mohamed El Hossary, the cofounder and the CEO of Etba3ly 3D, when he was asked about his favorite moment in the process of the prosthetics project.
Technologies has been one of the main reasons which helps differently abled people to cope with their lives in order to be able to do everything and aspire others with their accomplishments. Not only technology, but also volunteers who spend their lives in inventing technologies that would benefit the differently abled ones.
Written by Lobna El Shirbiny.