Above knee amputee creates sporting prosthetics

When he was at the hospital, Brian was given a prosthetic leg. Before the accident, he was a sponsored competitive skier on the track for the USA Olympic team. The doctors told him he wouldn’t be able to ski again, not the way he was used to. And there was no solution on the market that would enable him to do sports the same way.

“I would never have wanted to go through that. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t be doing the work I am doing now. I never planned to do the work I am doing now. I didn’t even know any amputees (at the time), the inventor recalled.

We joined the International Paralympic Committee’s Alpine Skiing World Cup, and came in seventh in the world and got good results. But that wasn’t enough for him.

So he came up with the Bartlett Tendon Universal Knee (BTK), a new sporting prosthetic for amputees.

BTK consists of an extensible prosthetic knee that mimics the motion and support of a human knee for sports like skiing, motorcycling, waterskiing, mountain biking, etc., thanks to an innovative tendon design. It has artificial tendons, plus a Rock Shox Monarch RT3 shocker absorber (the shock can be tuned and adjusted just like on a bike so the athlete can maximise his or her performance on the fly). It is made from 6061T aircraft aluminium, cold rolled steel, and R6 sealed bearings. There are even carbon fibre connectors on the top of the unit to limit damage to the rider’s clothing.

This innovation has been featured in museums and called a “pioneering development” in prosthetic technology.

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More info: https://www.leftside.life/
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