Frontline Medicine. Part 2, Rebuilding lives.

The second in a two part series in which Michael Mosley looks at the latest cutting edge medical treatments for soldiers wounded during battle. The survival rate of injured troops in Afghanistan is the highest ever. Keeping them alive is the beginning of the process and the first part of the documentary looked at this. This part moves on to show rehabilitation following that initial survival period and Mosley begins this by visiting Chuck, a young soldier who came in as an emergency in the first part. Many of the soldiers intend to go back to their military lives following rehabilitation and a few talk to Mosley and describe the positive and negative aspects of learning to use prosthetic limbs. At Massechusetts Institute of Technology, Mosley meets Hugh Herr, himself a double amputee who is designing one of the first successful bionic prosthetic legs. Mosley then meets Glen, a soldier who lost his right arm and now has a prosthetic arm which works by 'mind control.' The surgery which led to this was performed by Colonel Martin Baechler who explains how it was done and shows footage of Glen's operation. At the moment, Glen's hand can only do three movements but the government have invested $50 million in developing these arms to perform closer to the thirty movements that a normal hand and arm can make. A new trial is underway based on hand transplantation and Mosley meets Chris who has had a double hand transplantation and only has to take one anti-rejection medicine and his own nerves are slowly growing into the new hands. Doctor Joseph E. Losee describes new procedures in transplantation. At the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Stephen Badylak demonstrates to Mosley how they are using pig's bladders to regenerate human muscle and Dr Anthony Atala describes his work with human skin cells.