CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Researchers at The Ohio State University have come up with a new snap-on technology that can help some people walk again, as well as other activities.

The team is now assisting those without limbs in a whole new way, by performing a new procedure that works with a different kind of artificial limb.

It’s designed to make it easier for amputees to get moving and feel less pain.

Ohio State researchers use a technique in which a metal bar is implanted into the bone. It extends outside the body to connect to a prosthesis that snaps onto the bar.

“It's outside the skin to the patient's body and allows it to function better,” said Dr. Joel Mayerson, an orthopaedic oncologist at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. “And to not have to wear a socket outside their body that can get sweaty and cause skin problems, can pinch, can be painful, and can wear actual defects into the skin from rubbing and cause blisters.”

This is all part of what’s called “osseointegration”. It allows for much more natural movement when combined with a procedure called "targeted muscle reinnervation," which attaches severed nerves to remaining muscle.

This procedure greatly reduces chronic pain experienced by amputees that often happens when firing nerves have nowhere to channel energy. It also prepares the residual limb to interact with electrodes that allow patients to control their artificial limb with their brain.

Only a few of these kinds of procedures have been done in the U.S., but the hope is they will eventually be the new standard of medical care.