By Sonia Collins, WebMD Health News
July 23, 2014 -- Sydney Kendall lost her right arm below the elbow in a boating accident when she was 6 years old. Now 13, Sydney has used several prosthetic arms. But none is as practical -- nor as cool, she’d argue -- as her pink, plastic, 3-D-printed robotic arm.
The arm was custom-designed for her this spring, in pink at her request, by engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis through a partnership with Shriners Hospital. They printed it while Sydney and her parents watched.
“It took about 7 minutes to do each finger,” says Sydney’s mother, Beth Kendall. “We were all blown away.”
When Sydney wore her new arm to her school outside St. Louis, her classmates were blown away, too. “They were like, ‘Sydney, you’re so cool! You’re going to be famous!'” Sydney recalls.
The robotic arm, with its opposable thumb, helps Sydney grip a baseball, maneuver a mouse, and pick up a paper coffee cup.
The cost? About $200. Traditional robotic limbs can run $50,000 to $70,000, and they need to be replaced as children grow.
“Kids don’t usually get to have robotic arms because they are so expensive,” Beth Kendall says.
Robotic arms like Sydney’s are just one example of how 3-D printing is ushering in a new era in personalized medicine.
Read more on WebMD.com.