An intoduction to problems of aids for the handicapped; physiological and perceptual aspects. Paper presented at the IEEE International Convention, New York, March, 23-26,1970.

The problems of the handicapped are multitudinous. For example each hand has on the order of 15 degrees of freedom with the additional rotational abilities of the wrist, elbow and shoulder the number of degrees of freedom rises impressively. Yet the best arm-hand artificial-limb system yet produced have only 2 or 3. New orthotic aids must be designed and developped.