Circular Economy for Prosthetic Limbs

每10000名活产儿中约有4.5名出生时患有某种形式的上肢缺陷；这相当于英国每年有250名儿童，美国和欧盟每年有3500名儿童。市场未能为这些孩子提供食物。尽管上肢假肢技术取得了进步，但儿科使用者的排斥率仍保持在35%左右。这是由于未能解决儿科人群和成人获得性截肢者之间患者需求的根本差异。我们正在建造Rebel Hand，这是一款多功能、小巧、重量轻的假肢，是为儿童设计的。Rebel Hand可以在一个小包装中提供高端成人上肢设备预期的约90%的功能，最初针对的是6岁及以上的用户。手指和手掌是模块化的，有各种大小可供选择。这使得手可以通过主动跟踪儿童完整手的尺寸和安装适合的模块来适应生长。通常，医疗设备通常是一次性物品，它们使用的是越来越高端的技术。我们的现代模块化设计为假手的再制造提供了新的机会。在这个项目中，利用新的医疗器械法规，我们的目标是了解如何以安全的方式翻新和回收使用过的假肢，以便另一个孩子可以使用它，可能的价格要低得多。我们将探讨和了解监管方面以及公众(儿童及其父母/照顾者)对回收和重复使用假手的看法。我们将从成本(消毒系统和时间)以及与现代数字制造流程的集成方面研究各种经医学批准的清洁方法。我们将开发财务模型，以跟踪与翻新单个子部件的所有步骤相关的成本，以及在再制造中使用每个翻新部件时的相应节省。动态模式将推动我们的制造流程，不断优化再制造、翻新和再利用，以降低所有利益相关者的成本。这笔资金目前对我们至关重要，因为它将使我们能够1。以一种有利于回收的方式设计和制造Rebel Hand；2.将数据驱动的财务模型整合到我们的制造流程中；以及3.鼓励在市场内进行低成本的翻新。

The number of children born with some form of upper limb deficiency is ~4.5 in every 10,000 live births; equating to 250 children per year in the UK and 3,500 children across the US and the EU. The market has failed to provide for these children. Despite advances in upper-limb prosthetics, rejection rates for paediatric users remain around 35%. This is due to a failure to address fundamental differences in patient needs between the paediatric population and adult acquired amputees. We are building the Rebel hand; a multi-functional, small, and lightweight prosthesis, that is designed with children for children. The Rebel hand can deliver ~90% of the functionality expected in high-end adult upper-limb devices in a small package, initially targeted at users aged 6-year-old and above. The fingers and the palm are modular and available in various sizes. This allows the hand to adapt to growth by proactively tracking the dimensions of the child's intact hand and fitting modules to suit.In general, medical devices are typically one-use items and they utilise increasingly high-end technology. Our modern modular design offers new opportunities for remanufacturing prosthetic hands.In this project and taking the advantage of new medical device regulation, we aim to understand how we can refurbish and recycle a used prosthesis in a safe way so that another child can use it, potentially at a much smaller price. We will explore and understand the regulatory aspects as well as public (children and their parents/carers) perception of recycling and reusing prosthetic hands. We will study various medically-approved cleansing methods in terms of cost (disinfection systems and time) and integration to modern digital manufacturing pipeline. We will develop financial models to track the costs associated with all steps of refurbishing individual subcomponents and the corresponding savings when using each refurbished component in remanufacturing. A dynamic model will drive our manufacturing process, continually optimising remanufacturing, refurbishing, and reusing to reduce cost for all stakeholders.This funding is crucial for us right now as it will enable us to1. design and manufacture the Rebel Hand in a recycling-friendly way;2. integrate data-driven financial models into our manufacturing process; and3. incentivise low-cost refurbishment within the market.