A Maker Who is Making a Difference

Father of the Decade [Jorge] has a son named Ivo. Ivo was born with spastic quadripalegia, meaning his skeletal muscles were so taught that it had become very difficult for Ivo to walk. According to Ivo's doctors it would eventually become impossible to do so, even with the help of muscle relaxers or Botox. Lucky for him he has a father who was willing to take a very active role in his treatment. 

Jorge set to work building a tripod frame that would provide his son with enough support to stand while taking part in activities like playing ping-pong and golf. This tripod allowed Ivo to slowly train his skeletal muscles so that he would be able to stand on his own, but walking was still an issue. The next phase of Jorge's build was a modification of an elliptical exercise machine, his hopes being that this would help Ivo walk under his own power some day. 

As you can see for yourself in the videos below, Jorge's ingenuity and love for his son prevailed. Ivo is now quite capable of walking. 

A deaf woman hears for the first time in her life thanks to a Cochlear Implant

This is a video of a 29 year old woman having her Cochlear Implant turned on for the first time. Every time I see a video like this I tear up a bit. We may make a lot of horrile mistakes as a species, but things like this represent the true and lasting good that we are capable of. This is just beautiful.

Bionic Hand

I stumbled across this link in my RSS feed today and thought I'd share it. This is really exciting and demonstrates one of my favorite things about technology, its ability to improve people's lives.

A young Austrian man, "Milo", elected to have his damaged right hand amputated in order to test a new bionic hand that is directly controlled by his nervous system. I recommend you read this article, it is pretty impressive stuff.

Check the link here.