Future Is Here for the Bionic ‘Six-Million-Dollar Man’ of the ‘90s : Medicine: New prosthetic limbs give the wearer senses of touch and temperature. An Oklahoma City firm has the system under development.

They call Chuck Tiemann the bionic man.

The former utility lineman in Braman, Okla., lost his left arm and right leg in an accident atop an electrical pole 15 years ago. He’s now among the first amputees to test a new generation of artificial limbs that provide the senses of touch, hot and cold.

Tiemann’s local TV appearances helped him get the six-million-dollar nickname--after the 1970s TV superhero. But he’s not planning on lifting cars or outrunning trains any time soon. He’s more concerned with simpler skills.

“The first time I could reach out and touch my wife’s hand and feel the warmth after more than a decade--that was a very emotional moment,” he said.

The sensory system is under development by the Sabolich Prosthetic Research Center in Oklahoma City, a division of Novacare Inc., a large King of Prussia, Pa.-based physical rehabilitation company.

Sabolich formally unveiled the system Thursday. It said the timing was coincidental to the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing that left a large number of people maimed.

The system uses pressure and temperature sensors and electronic circuits embedded in the false arms and legs. These circuits are connected to electrodes patched to the skin of the remaining limb. The electrodes transfer the pulses to nerve endings and the brain.

John Sabolich, Novacare’s national prosthetics director, said two years of tests began this spring that ultimately will involve 120 amputees nationwide. The research is partly funded by roughly $500,000 from the National Institutes of Health. The products could be on the market in under a year, while the tests are being conducted, he said.

“It will help people balance and walk better and run so they can do the things they like to do,” Sabolich said.

There are also benefits for non-amputees.

Diabetics, who often lose circulation and the sense of touch in their feet, can use the system to restore it, he said.

Physical therapists who are helping people walk can electronically link a patient’s senses to their own feet and legs--giving them the sensation of what’s wrong with the patient’s gait.

Researchers have been testing these sensory systems on one or two people at a time since the 1950s, said Clayton Van Doren, who does such work from his professor’s post at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. But he said Sabolich’s work is the first commercial application. “The single thing we most need right now is exactly what Sabolich is doing--putting something on the market.”

Patients have described the sense of touch they get as a tingling, “like the feeling you get when your foot’s asleep,” Sabolich said.

Tiemann said he likes feeling the clutch of his pickup truck, or knowing the temperature of that cup of coffee he’s about to grab with his “myoelectric” hand, a prosthesis that holds and turns at will.

“Some patients have told me they can actually feel their fingers spread,” said Tiemann, 39, who now works as a bank loan officer and rehabilitation volunteer in northern Oklahoma.

Such reports involve what Sabolich calls cerebral projection. Amputees sometimes have a sense that their limbs are still present and also experience what they call “phantom pain.” Restoring senses has, in a few instances, alleviated this pain, he said.

The ongoing tests will attempt to quantify the benefits of restoring senses, Sabolich said.

This will be critical if insurance companies and cost-conscious health maintenance organizations are to be persuaded to pay the $3,500 cost of the sensory systems--in addition to the $7,000 to $25,000 cost of the limb.

“They will have to show this feedback will allow a person to have an occupation they wouldn’t have otherwise, and be more productive, or reduce the amount of assistance they require,” said Van Doren. Otherwise, “It could very well be considered a frill,” he said.

Tiemann said the sensory system and other innovations help amputees regain a sense of normalcy--something that can’t be measured in dollars.

“When I woke up from my amputations, I felt mutilated. I said ‘How can I ever live a regular life again?’ Fifteen years later, the answer is ‘Yes, without a doubt.’ ”