The Wounds of War

ATHREE-DAY CONFERENCE HOSTED at the Thayer School of Engineering in December addressed a pressing new challenge for the medical and scientific communities: how to treat soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with multiple injuries. Thanks to improved body armor, casualty care and evacuation procedures, todays soldiers are more likely than ever to survive combat injuries—even those that incapacitate interconnected physiological systems. Approximately 300 soldiers wounded Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from such multiple acute wounds caused by improvised explosive devicesusually to the hands, feet, arms, legs, face and parts of the brain—leading to a diagnosis of polytrauma.

novative new treatments after consulting on the use of robotic arms at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "When you lose both arms you use your vision to help move your prosthetic or robotic limbs. What ifyou loseyour vision? You maybe able to compensate with sound, but what if you lose your ears? This is where bioengineering and computers come into play," he says.