Romina the whippet, who lost her right front leg in a lawnmower accident, is being fitted with a new prosthetic limb, courtesy of the Veterinary Hospital of the Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM) in Mexico City. And they’re making the device with a 3-D printer.
MEXICO CITY – A six-year-old dog named Romina, who was injured in a lawnmower accident, is fitted with an articulated prosthetic leg made with 3D printing technology.
Specialists at the Universidad del Valle de Mexico’s Veterinary Hospital (UVM) worked for six months designing the country’s first articulated leg with joints that mimic the natural movement of the Whippet’s leg.
Santiago Garcia, UVM’s great species coordinator and specialist in prosthetics, said being able to print out the model in 3D made the process easier and enabled him to adjust it quickly.
“When we have the 3D model of the patient’s limb, we are able to adjust the size of the piece to the patient, in terms of millimeters,” he explained.
The team hopes to develop prophetic limbs for other animals such as turtles and crocodiles.
The International Business Times, which is where we got this video, adds:
Fernanda Ortiz, who leads the department of rehabilitation at the UVM said Romina needs to learn to use the device and will have to endure an adaptation process at a rehabilitation and physiotherapy clinic.
“When she flexes her elbow, the whole prosthesis flexes and so she has to learn to make this movement in order to learn how to use it. Obviously, we’re unable to tell her: ‘Flex and walk normally with your elbow’, because she doesn’t understand and so it’s very important for us, through exercises and indications, to show her how to do it,” Ortiz said.