The two-day Conference on the Evolving Trends of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies was a hybrid conference held on the 25th and 26th of November 2021 at Hotel Africana, Kampala Uganda. There were over 200 individuals for both its virtual and physical attendance. Participants ranged from; stakeholders in Ugandan health sector, Ministry of Health, the National Medical Stores, academic researchers, medical professionals, orthopedic surgeons, Prosthetists, and Orthotists, to students and new personnel with a growing interest in the field. The Organizing Committee during the Confer ..read more

As an upcoming Biomedical Engineer, I was nurtured to design new technologies with an emphasis of fit-for-purpose and context. My Bachelor’s degree curriculum was very heavy on Engineering design which spanned 3 of the 4 years of study, completing at least 8 design projects in total. My Master’s degree curriculum was no different. It focused on the re-design of motorcycle helmets, the tools that are used to manufacture them, and the standards to which they adhere, to make them more affordable, comfortable and suitable for the Tropics. While my Masters degree studies were immensely useful in mo ..read more

Designing another upper limb prosthesis? Cue the undeserved praise now. Aside from the general public whose knowledge of a niche area of healthcare I can forgive, the doling out of awards and accolades to those designing a solution to a poorly understood problem continues. The source of this today is a slew of start up ventures that spend considerable amounts of time performing their social media blitz, and need to spend an equal amount of time (dare I say more time) learning about the prosthesis user experience. Uploading a new 3D printed hand to a cloud, with a design that can’t interface wi ..read more

Upper limb prosthetics has interested me since my graduation as a clinical prosthetist from the London School of Prosthetics in 1991. I worked as a prosthetist in Liverpool before becoming a lecturer at Salford, and now my research focuses on some of the issues that have frustrated people with upper limb absence and hindered upper limb prosthesis use and acceptance. The team here at Salford, and those who have joined us from elsewhere in the F4P project, have a keen mutual interest in resolving some of the problems associated with prosthesis use and control. My own PhD was focused on the area ..read more

I can’t believe that the Fit-4-Purpose project has been going now for almost two years! Straight after my PhD with the Salford team, I joined the project in February 2018 as a Postdoctoral Researcher, with a background in Medical Engineering and Upper-limb prosthetics and I have been involved with various parts of the project ever since. In recent months I have been feeding into aspects of WP5 (led by the team at UCL) by analysing some upper-limb activity data recorded in Jordan and Uganda. But my main project has related to WP2 (led by our team here at Salford) and involves the development of ..read more

The 17th International Society of Prosthetics Congress was held in Kobe, Japan in October 2019. I attended and gave two presentations related to the work taking place in Uganda and Jordan. The theme was “Basics to Bionics”. My favourite sessions were related to outcome measures, developing countries, psychosocial issues, quality of life, prosthetics upper limb and assistive technologies against ageing society (although this theme would have been better if it was assistive technology for older age or elderly). I was slightly disappointed to see that more than 60% of efforts are still directed t ..read more

I am a prosthetics and orthotics graduate, currently working at the University of Jordan with Dr. Mohammad Sobuh as a research assistant on the Fit4Purpose project. In this project, we are collaborating with our partners from the UCL, University of Southampton, University of Portsmouth, University of Salford and Makerere University (Uganda). In order to make sure that our hand and socket meet the needs of the prosthetic users we are talking to people in Jordan with upper limb loss.  There are no statistics showing how many upper limb amputees there are in Jordan, but my best estimate is t ..read more

The two-day Conference on the Evolving Trends of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies was a hybrid conference held on the 25th and 26th of November 2021 at Hotel Africana, Kampala Uganda. There were over 200 individuals for both its virtual and physical attendance. Participants ranged from stakeholders in Ugandan health sector; Ministry of Health, the National Medical Stores, academic researchers, medical professionals, orthopedic surgeons, Prosthetists, and Orthotists, to students and new personnel with a growing interest in the field. The Organizing Committee during the Conference o ..read more

In common with our partners in Uganda and Jordan, the project teams in the UK have been working from home for several weeks now. While this presents some opportunities (no time lost in commuting, or travelling to meetings, and for me, glorious evening cycles along traffic-free roads in Manchester), it also undoubtedly presents challenges. At an individual level, those team members with young children are faced with the daily juggling of work and childcare/home schooling challenges. I suspect I am not alone in missing going to the pub – Indeed, one of the team, Mark Miodownik (@markmiodownik ..read more

As an upcoming Biomedical Engineer, I was nurtured to design new technologies with an emphasis of fit-for-purpose and context. My Bachelor’s degree curriculum was very heavy on Engineering design which spanned 3 of the 4 years of study, completing at least 8 design projects in total. My Master’s degree curriculum was no different. It focused on the re-design of motorcycle helmets, the tools that are used to manufacture them, and the standards to which they adhere, to make them more affordable, comfortable and suitable for the Tropics. While my Masters degree studies were immensely useful in mo ..read more