People without access to healthcare can use bicycle parts and other scrap material to make their own DIY prosthetics, using a system designed by Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology graduate Desiree Riny.
The designer created the guide after spending a year investigating the reality of how rural dwellers in developing countries managed their lower-limb amputations as part of her industrial design masters thesis project at the university.
Desiree Riny has created a DIY guide to making prosthetic limbs
She concluded that the latest advances in prosthetics meant little to the majority of amputees, who either cannot afford professional care or live too far away from existing services.
She found statistics that indicated 95 per cent of the world's lower-limb amputees live in such environments without access to professional care. Riny created the guide for amputees who cannot afford professional care
Beyond the issue of affording and obtaining the prostheses in the first place, the devices were sometimes unsuitable for rural environments and hard to maintain.
"Devices produced with advanced technologies such as 3D printing are often difficult to repair and not always suited to rural environments," said Riny. "Faced with these limitations, amputees find innovative do-it-yourself responses which are tailored to local materials and traditional practices."
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