Guest Editorial: Progress on stabilizing and controlling powered upper-limb prostheses

While the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD) is often a repository for research conducted with a large subject population to compare and validate the devices and treatments used in rehabilitation, it is also a means to keep clinicians and researchers up to date on the development of new devices and treatments. This issue, addressing the problem of upper-limb loss, emphasizes the device-development side of JRRD's mission. Compared with other forms of disability, upper-limb loss is relatively rare, and finding a large enough group of subjects is often difficult for studies that help researchers assess whether they are going in the right direction. When developing new devices are being developed, careful feasibility studies are important. Much that is reported here is preliminary and based on relatively few subjects. My objective is to quantify the state of development so that other researchers can move the field forward knowing which directions are the most promising.