A Logo on a Prosthesis Is Like a Tattoo You Didn’t Ask For

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2024-09-04 12:30:18

The first time Angel Giuffria saw the logo on her bionic hand, she felt a sense of pride. She was born without the lower half of her left arm, and started wearing a prosthesis at six weeks old. Back then, it had a beige cover—a design that was meant to mimic skin, but looked obviously fake. This new hand abandoned any unsettling attempt at imitation. Instead, it had a Star Wars–like aesthetic. Giuffria was delighted. She felt like it allowed her to celebrate, not conceal, being a prosthetic-wearer.

But the more she stared at the brand’s orange-and-black logo slapped across the top of the hand, the more she felt that she’d become a walking billboard, she told me. Bionic (or myoelectric) limbs, which are operated by muscle and nerve impulses to more closely mimic the movements and operation of a real limb, have evolved dramatically in the past few decades. And because they offer so much more movement control, these droid-like devices and their accessories have become more prevalent among prosthetics users. They also nearly universally feature branding. Logos on distal parts (hands, feet, ankles, wrists) are the most visible, but companies brand other parts of a limb, too: tightening knobs, silicone liners, socks, and running blades. Fully adopting a prosthesis as an extension of one’s body can be challenging to begin with, but many prosthetics users have found that branding only makes this harder.

I’ve had this experience myself. Like many other amputees, after seeing a cosmetic prosthesis that reminded me most of a severed hand, I opted for a more mechanical mien. But plastered across the top of the bionic hand I wanted, in traffic-cone orange and black, was the device’s name, BeBionic . Wearing parts that nearly all have logos on them feels like someone else now owns bits and pieces of me. The silicone liner that my prosthesis attaches to has a QR code near the top and WillowWood printed along its length. My elbow joint reads Ottobock , and the adjuster used to tighten my socket has BOA running across it in silver letters. Imagine someone approaching you with a tattoo gun and asking to put a QR code on your body. Such marks on a prosthesis send the message that the limb isn’t fully yours.