Pioneering South African Prosthetics: Jetting Off For The Procedure

Prosthetics professional and owner of Deist & Associates, Jaco Deist, and his partial-hand amputee patient, Bridgette Mokoena set off for Scotland on 12 November 2017. They were to meet with Touch Bionics to start testing Bridgette’s new bionic hand. What an exciting few days were had!

Hello, Scotland!

The itinerary for the trip revolved around meeting with Touch Bionics for daily training. In fact, as soon as they landed in Scotland they visited the Touch Bionics offices in order to arrange for the forthcoming proceedings that would occupy the next few days. And the days that followed involved multiple evaluations, intensive training and bionic hand development which occurred while the device was connected to Bridgette!

Once they were more settled, however, the evaluation and training processes could officially begin. Bridgette admits that this was the part of the trip she was most anxious about. She said this made her nervous because “it had the greatest possibility of affecting the duration and development process of the bionic hand.”

Nevertheless, there was no need for Bridgette to be apprehensive because throughout the whole process she was, as Jaco put it, an absolute superstar!