New High-tech Prostheses Being Developed for Amputees

JEFFREY KAYE: Advances in prosthetics include the development of new, tough, but lightweight materials, better shapes and designs, and most recently the increased use of computers embedded within artificial limbs. They allow prostheses to more closely mimic the movements and agility of real limbs.

PETER HARSCH, Ossur: We've made the technology smarter. Not only it's mimicking natural function, it's actually thinking smarter, thinking faster, outthinking just the typical mechanical knee systems or regular foot systems.

JEFFREY KAYE: Peter Harsch, seen here at a mobility clinic for amputees, is a prosthetist with Ossur, an Icelandic-based manufacturer of artificial limbs. Among the company's wares is a computerized prosthetic knee. It does thousands of calculations a second to keep the wearer quite literally on his or her feet.

PETER HARSCH: It knows when the patient is on its toe, and they know when it's on their heel. And it knows when it's in space or in a swing mode. So what you have is you have a very smart software package that's constantly downloading data.

One of them is Army Captain David Rozelle, who participated in the La Jolla triathlon. He was wounded in Iraq in 2003.

CAPT. DAVID ROZELLE, U.S. Army: I ran over an anti-tank mine that the terrorists had laid in my route, which blew up underneath the Humvee, destroyed the right front end of my Humvee, and, unfortunately, my right foot.

JEFFREY KAYE: Two years after his foot and ankle were blown off, Rozelle became the first amputee to return to combat in Iraq. He's also competed in numerous athletic competitions.

Rozelle says military amputees, like disabled athletes, are changing expectations about what amputees can do. Because of their youth and fitness, they're also demanding more from their artificial limbs and from the people who make them.

CAPT. DAVID ROZELLE: Our amputees say, within the year, "I want to run a marathon." It's those soldiers that are driving the research, driving the science, to make things now to give these American heroes the ability to be able.

JEFFREY KAYE: According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prosthetic research and development. Researchers forecast a day where amputees will be outfitted with bio-hybrid prostheses that they will control just by thinking.

Maurice Mulligan is a prosthetist with the Veterans Administration.

MAURICE MULLIGAN, Veterans Administration: There's research going on now where they link into the nervous system so there will be no learning curve. In other words, a guy loses an arm. You put the arm on. The same brain pathways that activated it before will activate his artificial hand.

Military amputees have the expense of their prosthetics covered by the government, but many in the civilian world don't have that advantage.

Laura Brumund lost her leg 14 years ago in an automobile accident. She's eager to get a new prosthetic leg with a computerized knee, but her insurer has twice denied her request for coverage.

LAURA BRUMUND, Amputee: They're saying that it's experimental knee, that it's not a necessity. You know, I'm 33 years old. I have a 4-year-old son I need to keep up with. And I'm pretty active. I'm in the gym, you know, three to five times a week. And I think it would be a perfect fit for me if I could get that knee.

JEFFREY KAYE: Parents with amputee children face another challenge: As the youngsters grow, their artificial limbs must be frequently replaced.

SARAH REINERTSEN: When I was a kid, my health insurance company said the policy originally stated we will give you one artificial leg for your lifetime. I was 7 years old when I had my amputation. How am I going to use the same leg for my entire life from the age of 7 on?

JEFFREY KAYE: Away from athletic competitions, Sarah Reinertsen has become an advocate for expanding insurance coverage to amputees.

SARAH REINERTSEN: They're capping now $1,100 for the lifetime of an amputee. So they're not saying, "Look, we'll only give you one leg." "We'll only give you one payout for $1,100 for your lifetime." Eleven hundred dollars isn't going to even get you the whole full leg.

You know, my full prosthetic knee, foot, socket -- the socket is so expensive, because it's the custom part -- you're looking about $30,000 to $36,000, up to $40,000 for an above-knee amputee. So $1,100 isn't even going to get you a toe.

JEFFREY KAYE: To increase access to new artificial limbs, the Amputee Coalition of America is lobbying state governments to draft legislation requiring insurance companies to cover prosthetics. Such bills have passed in Colorado, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island.

But the insurance industry argues such laws amount to health care mandates. It also contends that paying for expensive artificial limbs for relatively few people boosts health care costs for the wider population of the insured.

At the triathlon, the joys of competition replaced concerns about costs and coverage. Participants here said, as technology improves, the divide between the able and the disabled will inevitably narrow.

CAPT. DAVID ROZELLE, U.S. Army: I'd say to the able athletes out there, you know, that are worried about us having some mechanical advantage, well, sure, watch out. You know, we're coming after you.

JEFFREY KAYE: Some experts in artificial limbs foresee the day when amputee athletes will be able to beat their fully-abled competitors.

COACH: Awesome. This is her first time running, you guys. That's awesome. Feeling good?

AMPUTEE: Yes.