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Zain Ahmed Samdani[/caption]By Mir Mohsin Ali
RIYADH — Globally more than 200 million people live with some type of disability among them are a large number of people with motor disabilities.
When Zain Ahmed Samdani embarked on a project, his aim was to design and develop a precise, compact light weight and a portable solution with independent motion on each phalange in order to potentially cure hand paralysis and provide rehabilitation to stroke patients and those with muscular degenerative diseases.
Zain is only one representative from Saudi Arabia and among 16 global finalists, who will be competing at the sixth Google Science Fair to be held on Sept. 2 in California.
Sixteen-year-old Zain, a 11th class student of Al-Yasmin International School, lives with his parents in Riyadh. His father Zubair Ahmed, project manager, Namma Cargo Service, said, “This is a proud moment for all family members and friends that my son has been selected as one of the global finalist at the Google Science Fair. The winner is given a scholarship of fifty thousand dollars.”
“I am trying to travel with Zain to United States to the attend the sixth Google Science Fair finale,” he said.
Zain said, “His interest in robotics began while seeing his mother busy and multitasking with her household schedule and taking care of us which resulted in less time for herself. This inspired me to create robots, which could lessen her burden.”
His project basically renders rehabilitation a primary challenge with the goal of improving the quality of life for patients through either traditionally assisted physiotherapy or by using new technologies in rehabilitation centers by observing the limitations of approaches introduced by previous models.
During an exclusive chat with Saudi Gazette, he said his main aim in creating ExoHeal degenerative of exoskeleton capable of curing hand paralysis and providing rehabilitation to stroke patients and those with muscular diseases his research for a potential cure, he discovered the solution to the trouble, namely plasticity.
“The brain is elatic and can change from experience. The most important part is to believe, the patient wants to perform mental exercises in which he/she is moving the paralyzed hand,” he said.
By combining ideas from previously built models and using the human hand as portable to inspiration, Zain has created a hand exoskeleton, which is precise and accurate, lightweight.
The precision, control, and accuracy in the movements of a robot, can offer patients extremely thorough rehabilitation routines.
The exoskeleton will be worn on both hands and one hand being a sensory input and the other fixed with motors so when a movement is performed by the good hand, the paralyzed hand will mimic the exact movement. The patient will be made to think that he or she is moving both hands simultaneously.
He said, “Winning means taking me one step closer towards my goals. It will expose my project to the world, and I’m pretty sure my project will make a significant difference in the lives of paralyzed human beings.”
I was successful in making a prosthetic hand, which could be used by amputees as an alternative. During my research, I realized that there were more patients diagnosed with hand paralysis and hand stroke. I decided to take this up as a challenge and create a cure or an alternative for people suffering from hand paralysis or muscular diseases.
Upon extensive research, I realized a machine is yet to be built — all which is portable and lightweight. So globally, there is less attention towards the need to find a cure. When it comes to a medical issue, it does not matter if you are a millionaire or poor, we are all in the same boat.
