Circular Economy for Prosthetic Limbs

出生时患有某种形式上肢缺陷的儿童数量约为每10,000个活产婴儿中有4.5个；相当于英国每年有250名儿童，美国和欧盟每年有3500名儿童。市场无法养活这些孩子。尽管上肢假肢技术有所进步，但儿科使用者的排异率仍保持在35%左右。这是由于未能解决儿科人群和成年获得性截肢者之间患者需求的根本差异。我们正在建立起义军之手；一种多功能、小巧、轻便的义肢，专为儿童设计。Rebel手可以在一个小包装中提供高端成人上肢设备所期望的90%的功能，最初针对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。这允许手通过主动跟踪孩子完整手的尺寸和适合的模块来适应成长。一般来说，医疗设备是典型的一次性物品，它们越来越多地利用高端技术。我们的现代模块化设计为假肢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一种安全的方式翻新和回收使用过的假肢，这样另一个孩子就可以使用它，而且价格可能要低得多。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）对回收和再利用假手的看法。我们将在成本（消毒系统和时间）方面研究各种医学上认可的清洗方法，并与现代数字化制造管道集成。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相应的节省。动态模型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。这笔资金现在对我们至关重要，因为它将使我们能够。1 .以环保的方式设计和制造反叛之手；将数据驱动的财务模型集成到我们的制造流程中；说谎。鼓励市场内的低成本翻新。

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.