DOCTORS have performed the world's first "bionic hand reconstructions" - replacing a hand disabled by injury with a prosthetic that the patient can control with their mind. The three Austrian patients who underwent the procedure are now able to pick up objects, pour water, use a key and do up buttons with their artificial limb. Several patients around the world have now been fitted with bionic hands to replace lost or missing limbs, and a small number have been able to control them with signals from the brain. But the new procedure differs as the patients involved had been left with a functionless hand because of damage to the nervous system, and had to consent to doctors amputating their damaged limb in order to replace it with a prosthetic. Signals from the brain to the lower arm can, in rare cases, be cut off following a high-speed collision trauma injury, especially in motorcycle crashes or in rugby. Doctors at the Medical University of Vienna were able to create new nervous signals by transferring nerves and muscles from other parts of the body into the arm.
