Case history

For almost 20 years Michael Thompson chose to do without a prosthetic rather than deal with a traditional claw-and-hook device. Then he found out about the Touch Bionics i-LIMB Hand.

Thompson lost his right hand in a grain-auger accident in November 1988 while working as a farm hand. After his accident, he could no longer work on the farm, drive a truck to haul grain and deliver fuel oil, or participate in commercial fishing. A few months later, he lost his wife as well.

“She said I was no longer a whole man and she couldn’t stand to be around such a gimp and she was gone,” Thompson said. “I did end up going through a divorce over it.”

After so many years, he doesn’t find it difficult to speak so frankly about that chapter of his life. He remarried a year or so later, and now has an extended family of six children, two from his first marriage, two from his second marriage and two from his second wife’s previous marriage.

He also learned to get by with only one hand, foregoing a prosthetic device after an attempt to return to commercial fishing almost resulted in tragedy.

Following the loss of his hand, Thompson was fitted with a traditional hook-and-claw device operated by a shoulder harness. For a while, he engaged in computer work, building up to a one-handed typing speed of 40 words per minute. A year later, his father encouraged him to return to commercial fishing. But on the first day, his prosthetic limb snagged in a fish net. Only by hitting the quick release on the wrist and dumping the device did he avoid being dragged to the bottom of the river.

“I took (the harness) off, hung it in a closet and didn’t use it again until I went in with carpal tunnel syndrome (in his other arm) last October,” Thompson said.

That’s when everything changed.

A clinician with OrthoPro told Thompson about the i-LIMB Hand and followed up with
him after learning more about it at a conference. “And it just kind of snowballed from there,” he said.

After only a few days of use, the tasks he could complete with the hand, thanks to its opposable thumb and individually powered digits or ProDigits which were “pretty phenomenal to me.”

It’s the little things commonly taken for granted by the able-bodied that have had the most profound impact on Thompson’s life. He can take the ends of a quilt in each hand and fold it with his wife, shift his car without having to steer with his knee and reach across with this left hand, even use both hands to manipulate beads and string when making jewellery. He speaks with relish of being able to cruise the salad bar of his favourite restaurant without fear of dumping his plate now that he can hold it with a natural grip rather than nudge it along the edge of the counter with his elbow. And then there are the physical problems that arise from years of trying to function with only one hand.

“I’m developing a hump shoulder from being an amputee and not using that arm and that shoulder,” he said. “And I’ve got some back problems and attribute those problems to the loss of my hand, to the positions I have to put myself into grasp something or to do different tasks.”

Beyond the functionality granted by the i-LIMB Hand, the positive attention it has drawn from residents of his hometown is also gratifying.

“Public perception has just amazed me,” he said. “I’ve been able to shake people’s hands with it. They’ve been really positive. People have been really accepting of it. They want to see it, they want to feel it, they want to touch it. People that I don’t know will even come up to me and say ‘Wow, can you move that hand? It that a workable hand? How does it work?” more about i-LIMB hand

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