Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos Courtesy of Ortiz-Catalan et al., Sci. Rob., 2023
It’s been more than 20 years since Karin lost much of her right arm below the elbow in a farming accident. While she got medical attention, she was plagued for years with debilitating phantom limb pain—the sensation of feeling pain in a limb that is no longer there. It’s a phenomenon that often occurs with amputees, and can range from mild discomfort to agony.
For Karin, it was the latter. “It felt like I constantly had my hand in a meat grinder, which created a high level of stress and I had to take high doses of various painkillers,” she said in a statement.
However, that began to change more than three years ago when she signed up for the DeTOP project, a study into the creation of more sophisticated bionic limbs and prosthetics. From this project, researchers developed a bionic hand nicknamed Mia Hand for her that integrated directly into her skeletal and nervous system—allowing her greater control over the prosthetic while doing away with much of her phantom limb pain.