SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A motorized exoskeleton, designed to help paralyzed people walk again, just earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It is the first such device to do so.
The device, called ReWalk, straps on a user's body and helps those with certain spinal-cord injuries to sit, stand, and walk. Users have to wear a backpack to carry the ReWalk's computer and battery. They also have to wear a wrist device with buttons to tell the motorized legs when to stand up, sit down, or start walking. But it's not like users are punching every step into their wrist controllers — ReWalk's legs also respond to movements of the user's torso, so that leaning forward triggers a step.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
First Exoskeleton Gets FDA Approval For U.S. Sales
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 9 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:47PM
as soon as a viable "combat" exoskeleton is available, they'll all be snapped up by the military, which doesn't care about approval from other agencies and often flat-out ignores them (like when the FDA told them to stop using the anthrax vaccine, they kept on using it), and often uses its troops as guinea pigs, er, alpha and beta testers.
the military has been working for quite a while to get a combat exoskeleton, so hopefully now that one has been approved for civilian use, they wont be too far off.