L2M NSERC - Development of a low-cost prosthetic glove

许多接受假肢的人想要一只功能正常、与人的手非常相似的手。假肢设备的使用者可能会对自己缺失的肢体感到难为情，可能不想公开展示他们的假肢设备的末端，所以他们希望/想要一个美容手套来覆盖他们的假肢设备。提出的发明是一种使用3d打印模具制造低成本假肢手套的独特方法。3d打印最大限度地降低了化妆品假肢手套的生产成本，并允许复制有机形状的手的复杂几何形状。这改善了有需要的截肢者获得假肢手套的机会，允许手套设计容易地定制特定的假肢模型，并优化了制造过程。这是一种以较低成本制造假肢手套的新方法，它允许在诊所生产手套，而不是在中央工厂生产。这使得使用者更容易获得低成本的美容假肢手套。这使临床医生能够自己定制（即形状和颜色）手套，而无需依赖假肢制造商，从而降低了截肢者的成本和等待时间。

Many recipients of prosthetic arms want a hand that is functional and closely resembles a human hand. Users of prosthetic devices may be self-conscious about their missing limb and may not want to publicly show the terminal end of their prosthetic device, so they desire/want a cosmetic glove to cover their prosthetic device. The proposed invention is a unique approach to manufacturing low-cost prosthetic gloves using 3D-printed molds. 3D-printing minimizes the production costs for the cosmetic prosthetic gloves and allows for the complex geometry of an organically shaped hand to be replicated. This improves access to prosthetic gloves for amputees in-need, allows the glove design to be easily customized to the specific prosthetic hand models, and optimizes the manufacturing process. This is a novel approach for creating prosthetic gloves at a lower-cost, and it allows for producing the gloves in clinics, rather than in a central factory. This results in greater access to low-cost, cosmetic prosthetic gloves for users. This gives clinicians the ability to create the customized (i.e. shape and color) gloves themselves, without needing to rely on prosthetic manufacturers, reducing the costs and wait times for amputees.