After Hand Transplant, Patient's Brain Adapts

From NPR Topics: Health & Science:

David Savage has lived most of his life with a hook in place of a right hand. He was 19 when the hand he relied on to write his name, throw a ball and do hundreds of daily tasks was mangled in a metal-stamping machine, and doctors had to amputate. That was 37 years ago. Then, almost two years ago, Savage became the third American to get a hand transplant from a cadaver donor. Today, the 56-year-old Michigan man says he wakes up every morning happy to realize that he has two hands again. "It's like you're waking up from a bad dream," he says. "You've had this dream all night long, you know, like you're falling or whatever. And you wake up and you're just laying in bed. It's that kind of feeling." Savage's new hand is still gaining strength, but he can swing a hammer with it, and he can throw a football or baseball. "I couldn't do that with a hook," he says. He can now turn doorknobs and do "the everyday things in life."

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