In the history of war, the more proficient combatants have become at fighting, the better medicine has become at healing.
During World War II, battlefield doctors devised better techniques to repair delicate blood vessels, essentially rewriting the textbooks on vascular surgery. The Vietnam War sparked swift helicopter evacuation of the wounded that was soon copied by urban medical centers throughout the United States.
For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the medical legacy will probably belong to the amputee. The rate of amputation injuries among U.S. troops in these conflicts is almost twice as high as in any previous American military conflict, because of insurgents' predominant use of explosives. Some troops who would have died in past wars are being saved by body armor, which doesn't protect arms and legs.
Government agencies, private companies and independent researchers are creating more high-tech prosthetic limbs in response. In doing so, they're pushing the boundaries of what researchers and doctors once thought possible.
"Never has there been a time, in my experience, where the amputee has been offered so much to overcome the obstacles of having to adjust to their new body," said Robert S. Gailey Jr., assistant professor of physical therapy at the University of Miami and a longtime prosthetics researcher. "These young men and women will never understand what those who lost a limb 25 years ago had to go through."
Unlike the dead-weighted and immutable arms, feet and knees offered to veterans of the Vietnam War, the best prosthetic knees currently available rely on artificial intelligence to anticipate the user's movements. One knee, expected to become available in a few months, will even mimic lost muscle activity by powering ankle and leg amputees up stairs, or up from a sitting position.
But that's just the beginning. Advances in robotics, electronics and tissue engineering ultimately could create ways to lengthen damaged limbs, grow new cartilage, skin and bone, and permanently affix a prosthesis to the body. Some researchers are even designing a so-called biohybrid limb -- a prosthesis that can be controlled by the user's thoughts.
The biohybrid limb is designed to reduce the amount of effort needed to move the limb and thus limit falls, increase feelings of security and improve self-image. The user of such a leg could spring from the sofa to catch a baby who is about to tumble from a highchair.
