Bionic Hand Restores A Man’s Sense of Touch

On New Years Eve 2004 a firework accidentally exploded in the hand of Aabo Sørensen. The damage was excruciating and he lost his hand.

Ten years later and Aabo can feel again. A team of researchers have  restored Dennis’ touch with a special bionic hand that is wired directly into the nerves of Sørensen’s arm, and sensors located in its fingers translate touch into electrical signals that are eventually fed to the brain.

”Suddenly you could see my left hand was talking to my brain again and it was magic!” says Sørensen, “I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years. When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square.”

How it work? The bionic hand uses sensors in the fingers to detect touch and from there an electronic signal is generated. The electrical signal can’t be understood by the body’s nervous system so it is sent to a computer, then the computer translates the signal to the patients nervous system. The brain is then able to mimic the feeling of touching soft, hard, large, small shapes.