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New therapy for injured hands

Dr. Gloria Gogola is a pediatric hand surgeon who needed a way to measure muscle strength in her patients. She was using a test called the "Manual Muscle" test but says it was very subjective and not very reliable.

So she presented the problem to a team of mechanical engineering students at Rice University.

They developed a device called PRIME, which stands for Peg Restrained Intrinsic Muscle Evaluator.

Using a peg board, a loop and a PDA, PRIME isolates individual muscles and measures their strength. There is a sensor that can send a signal to the PDA about how hard the patient can pull.

That allows doctors to track the muscle's progress and make decisions about therapy.

A lot of things can affect the hand. About 20 percent of ER admissions are hand-related. Additionally, $2 billion a year is spent on carpal tunnel therapy.

Many patients are children. Six-year-old Alia suffers from a congenital muscle disorder. Dr. Gogola needs to know if she's getting weaker or stronger and the very tiny changes and make a huge difference and could be all it takes to help Alia maintain the ability to write her name.