3D-Printed Robotic Exoskeleton Gives Toddler Use of Her Arms

Arthrogryposis multiplex congenita - or AMC - is a condition wherein multiple joints in the body are fixed, limiting one's movement. Emma Lavella, a two-year-old girl born with AMC, is now able to move her arms thanks to a 3D-printed version of the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), a piece of robotics developed at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children of Wilmington, DE. The lightweight exoskeleton was manufactured using Stratasys's Dimension 3D printer.

Transcript

00:00:01 when she was born her legs were up by her ears and her shoulders were internally rotated and she had all ulnar deviation on her hands and rocker bottom feet the geneticist came upstairs and told us she had arthrogryposis Multiplex congenita they brought her legs down and they casted her and slowly and surely she started to develop

00:00:28 our first year with Emma we found out that there was going to be a conference and it was in Philadelphia it was an Arthur griposis family meeting in Philadelphia where I described the Rex we watched a presentation on the Rex and that's how it all started we ended up in tarek and Whitney's Workshop the Rex was attached to a stand and she was able to put her arms into

00:00:54 the wrecks and for the first time be able to lift her hand up towards her mouth she just started you know throwing her hands around and playing we were bringing candy up for her to eat and we were bringing toys up there and it was so fun for us to go up there and to see her play the existing wrecks saw metal parts and it's kind of big and Emma was too small

00:01:17 for that so we required something light and small that would attached to her body go with her so that's where we we had this stratasys 3D printing machine and we thought well we could print it out for her and he did it and weight difference is and for a child who only weighs 25

00:01:36 pounds it makes a big difference Whitney and tarek put their minds together and came up with a jacket and they would put the racks on that and we're on our second jacket she outgrew the first one and now we're on our second one and it's still evolving it's still growing into this incredible prosthetic that helps her to use her arms

00:01:59 without the 3D printer we would not be in a position wherein with these younger kids making them a Rex device that can go with them this is one of those industries that matches perfectly with 3D printing additive manufacturing because we need custom everything I think 3D scanning and printing technology is the future for this field the ABS plastic that they use is the

00:02:27 same plastic used in Legos it's human friendly if you will it's really strong and durable to handle the abuse we can answer a need in a heartbeat if the Rex breaks all I have to do is take a picture and email it to Whitney he knows exactly what the piece is he prints it out I go to the hospital or he's even mailed them I don't have to worry about lead time to machine something order

00:02:49 supplies I can just basically go back to my program and print out another one and it's back together and it's work when she started we would go upstairs and we would say Emma you know we're gonna put the racks on and she called them her magic arms and everyone in the room cried we took it off of her on this one occasion to make some adjustments to it and as we

00:03:14 took it off she cried out I want that and we didn't think all that much of it but when Mom started to cry and if we look over and ask mom why she's crying and she kind of takes a moment to recompose herself and tell us that that was her first complete sentence to be a part of that you know a little special moment for somebody else you know can't

00:03:39 help but uh kind of tear tug at your Heartstrings thank you foreign