The ratchet leg joint acts like a bone, creating a scaffold around which foam is attached and sculpted into a natural-looking finger, Bahor explains. The joint makes a perfect substitute finger because it bends and holds -- something previous prostheses, made with wire, could not do.

Bahor and former engineering student Jennifer Jordan, who needed a finger prosthesis herself, came up with the idea during a brainstorming session four years ago. At first, Bahor literally performed mini plastic surgeries -- an incision down the length of Barbie's leg -- to remove the tan plastic joint inside. Once Barbie's maker, Mattel, learned of the anaplastologist's experiments, it sent her hundreds of the lightweight body part.

Patients fitted with her prosthesis can quickly bend their fingers by pressing them against a hard surface or by using their other hand. Although the fingers lack feeling, the increased mobility provided by the Barbie joint allows wearers to hold a cup, to pick up a piece of paper and even, in some cases, to write again, Bahor says (although kung-fu grip may be out of the question).

The only drawback is "the noise they make; it sounds like cracking knuckles," Bahor points out. She now attempts to reduce the click noise by working the joints in a bit before using them in the prosthesis, allowing those sporting a Barbie knuckle to do so a little more quietly.

Winter 2001 index