An unusual demonstration on Capitol Hill was a high tech hand designed for people who've lost fingers, but not the palm. It works by sensing contractions in the existing muscles to open and close the grip. Idaho Senator, Larry Craig, is shown trying the device.
"It uses something called myo-electric control and essentially your muscles, when they contract in your body just as a consequence of a normal action, they generate an electric field as a by-product of that action and you can put these electrodes on the surface of the skin and they can detect that signal and amplify it, and you can use that signal to control the mechanism," said inventor Richard Weir.
The design team expects the hand to be available to consumers within the next few years.
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