Each day we make choices about how to present ourselves to the world. Our hair, our clothes, our accessories they all tell other people a lot about who we are and how we approach each day. When someone receives an upper limb prosthesis, they have yet another opportunity to express themselves. They can use their device to stand out, if they like, or they can choose an option that helps them blend in to the crowd. In this article, we’ll explore some of the choices our patients have made when it comes to their prosthetic devices, sockets and frames.

What if you could tell people all about your favorite sports teams without having to wear a jersey? Our bilateral upper limb loss patient Brady loves the Dallas Cowboys, but also wanted to share his other passions, including his kids:

Brady Johnson Myos-1

While logos and pictures are a lot of fun if your frame has the space for them, what about a smaller prosthetic device? Here’s a choice a patient of ours made for the socket of their single Point Designs digit: green!

Point Design Digit with Green Silicone-1

One of the best parts about silicone sockets is that they can be any color our patient requests. Green is a popular choice!

Green Silicone Protector

The above image is a hand protector. It can help its user, Mike, protect the sensitive parts of his hand when he’s not wearing his full prosthesis, which, incidentally, has a red silicone socket. You can see that the red matches his bowling ball in his video below:

Speaking of red, I don’t know if you heard, but the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl two years in a row. One of our prosthetic care centers is in Kansas City, so it’s no surprise that we get requests for those designs quite often:

KC Chiefs Partial Hand Point Design Digits x2
KC Chiefs Hybrid Partial Hand Point Design Digits and NP MCP Driver

So far, we’ve seen a lot of prostheses for men, and while they do make up the majority of the limb different population due to their higher rates of limb loss, we fit many women as well.

One choice available to women is a single-motor myoelectric hand. These types of hands combine the look of a real hand with functionality. Single-motor myoelectric hands can open and close, allowing users to have help during their work and home tasks. Below you can see our patients Kristi (using her prosthesis to hold the nail polish while she paints her daughter's toes) and Sherri in her video:

Kristi-7

Others may choose to stand out a bit more. Our patient Kiersten has a multi-articulating myoelectric TASKA CX hand with a black gloss frame as part of her socket:

Kiersten

Kiersten is an actor, singer and model, so looks are important to her. That’s why she asked for two different shells/covers to wear over her frame:

Clicking through the images on her Instagram post, you’ll see that Kiersten won a best actor award for her work in a film for the 2024 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, which you can watch on YouTube.

But getting back to having cover options for her prosthesis, here’s what Kierstin said: “The silver cover is a vinyl wrap around a carbon fiber shell. It’s really cute and I really like it. It’s nice because — well, think of it like changing your shoes every day or wearing a different shirt. One day you feel blue, so you wear a blue shirt and one day you feel happy, so you wear a yellow shirt. It’s like the same thing. If I’m performing or going out, I can jazz it up with my silver shell. Or I have the gloss black. It just gives me a variety to show off my style just because I’m missing an arm doesn’t mean I can’t have style.”

To switch shells, Kiersten removes her TASKA CX hand from her socket and then positions the shell over the frame. ”What’s really cool is that the power button is covered, so I’m getting that seamless chrome look. But there’s a cutout in the vinyl wrap so that I can turn my arm on and off, without losing the look of the chrome. It’s so cool.”

Kiersten has a different shell that she plans on bedazzling. Once she finishes that project, we’ll catch up with her to see how it went and share pictures.

It’s easy to see that having the option to show off your personality with the look of your prosthesis can lead to smiles, both your own and the people you meet each day. If you or someone you know would like to see if a custom frame for their prosthesis is a possibility, please contact us. You are also welcome to leave a comment below. Want to check out more customized prosthetic frame designs? Check out Creativity and Prosthetic Devices, Personalized Prostheses and Prosthesis Showcase.

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