Everyone should be the leader of their own or their children’s medical care. Your opinion is the most important. We absolutely respect each person’s choices and hope they are able to base their decisions on all the available information. That’s what we’re hoping to provide you with in this article.

After an Amputation

In the weeks and months following an amputation, your life looks vastly different from how it used to be. This can be the case regardless of the level of amputation. You are learning how to function without the full use of your upper limbs, and it’s a lot to deal with. Also, learning how to use a prosthesis, a tool you may have never seen before your amputation, can be more than daunting.

Cucumber-Listing

But if you do decide a prosthesis is worth a try, the earlier you begin prosthetic care, the better. Your brain is flexible, and it can be easier to figure out how to do tasks with your device rather than fully adapt to doing the task without a device at all.

Sometimes people do take a “wait and see” approach. This can result in overuse syndrome, that is, you’re using your residual limb and sound side to overcompensate for what’s missing. Those small aches and pains that at first pale in comparison to the pain you felt with your initial amputation may get more intense as time goes by.

Of course it is never too late to receive a prosthesis. Getting fit with a device can relieve those overuse symptoms with time, combined with therapy just one of the reasons all Arm Dynamics centers have on-site occupational therapists.

Clinical Therapy Specialist Becky Park works with a transradial patient on muscle recovery

Our patient Isaiah, seen below, first came to our Portland center in 2020 and knew that’s where he wanted to receive his prosthetic care. His insurance provider re-directed him to two different prosthetic providers, yet over the course of two years, he never received a functional prosthesis. In 2023, Isaiah's insurer approved him to be fit at our center, and after a month and a half, he had two custom-fit, fully functional prostheses. In the meantime, though, Isaiah, who is a gym rat, had been unable to continue his daily gym visits. Getting prosthetic care isn’t just about receiving care, it’s about receiving the RIGHT care.

Isaiah G-1

Congenital Limb Differences 

With children, we have the same advice: the earlier the better for them to be fit with a prosthesis. We have several patients who were not fit with a device as children, and later experienced overuse symptoms. The solution is to wear a prosthesis, but at that point the path is difficult because they’ve adapted to so many tasks with their residual hand or limb.

We have other patients who, as children, were fit with devices that didn’t work for them. The prostheses were bulky, heavy, or didn’t function well enough to be worth the hassle. Those patients abandoned their devices until they found it was time to give prostheses another try later in an effort to reduce their overuse symptoms. Our patient Max, pictured below, who has an above elbow congenital limb difference, was told by his parents to wear his device so he could fit in. But when he got to school, he would ask a friend to help him pull it off. His parents relented, but when Max became a young adult, he started experiencing terrible back pain. He began to work out to combat the pain, but because he was still only working out one side of his body, the pain intensified. His prosthetist was able to fit him with a device that would allow him to work out without pain and pursue a career in personal training.

Max Feature

When fitting small children with prosthetic devices, creating a positive experience can be key to them using the device. Promoting how helpful the device is and having a fun fitting process can help the child understand the importance of a prosthesis as a tool. Additionally, showing them how it can help them be more independent in their daily tasks may inspire them to learn how to use the device. You can hear the mom of Autumn, age eight, discuss why having her daughter wear a prosthesis from an early age made sense to her and her husband in Autumn's patient profile video.

While we love to help people regain or find new functionality, reducing overuse issues can be just as important.

Again, we absolutely respect everyone’s individual choice when it comes to how they approach their limb difference. It’s one of the reasons why we work very closely with each patient to create a device that will work for them and what they want out of life. Consider the prosthesis we made for Wendi. She’d become used to having a shortened limb after her elective surgery. She didn’t want to add length to her arm, but she did want to increase her functionality. The result? A prosthesis without a forearm:

Wendi69

If you’re interested in exploring prosthetic options, either for yourself or someone you know or love, please contact us. We offer complimentary consultations, either in-person or via video chat, and if at the end of the consultation, you decide prosthetic care is not what you want right now, we’ll understand. If you do decide that prosthetic care is something you want to pursue, please know that our prosthetists are some of the most experienced upper limb specialists in the country, our occupational therapists are with you at every step of the way, and our support team is there to help you with the ins and outs of insurance coverage.

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