Arm Dynamics TeamActivities of Daily Living
Comprehensive Accelerated Fitting ProcessProsthetistsHolistic Prosthetic CareDeciding Where to Receive Prosthetic Care

What Our Arm Dynamics Team Customizes for Each Patient

Amber Henson
by Amber Henson
Mar 4, 2025

On occasion, our team receives emails from people wanting to know more about the prosthetic terminal devices we create. We reply to let them know that we don’t actually create terminal devices — we fit our patients with a variety of devices manufactured by different companies. This allows us to offer optimal prosthetic care in two ways: one, because our team doesn’t have to focus on the creation of terminal devices we can focus on how those devices can best serve our patients; and two, it means we don’t have a brand bias. We’re not going to try and sell our patients a certain terminal device because it will make us more money. We’re going to offer our patients a range of choices and let them know, in our experience, which ones have been most helpful to our current patients with similar prosthetic needs.

So, if we’re not creating myoelectric hands, body-powered hooks and finger prostheses, what are we up to? Well, prosthetic care still covers a lot of ground. In our article about prosthetic parts, we listed every component that is needed to create a comfortable and functional prosthetic device. In this article, we’ll go over the parts that we customize for our patients, along with the prosthetic care we offer.

The Socket

Creating comfortable, lightweight sockets is one of our specialties. We’re very proud of the silicone sockets we create on a daily basis because of how much our patients love them. There are many reasons why we like using silicone: it has a lot of same properties as skin; it has healing properties that, over time, promote the growth of new skin; and silicone builds up less heat on the inside of the socket, so it feels cooler. You can read more about our silicone sockets in our article, How Silicone Sockets Improve Upper Limb Prostheses. Check out our patient Shawn talking about why he loves them:

While the silicone makes a big difference to our patients, there’s more to sockets than that. The physical design of a socket can impact comfort and functionality. Some patients have residual limbs with various bumps or divets – being able to add or remove silicone to accommodate each unique limb is akin to an art. Other prosthetic care providers may not put as much effort into this aspect of a prosthesis. More from our prosthetist Rob: “It took me many years to perfect the approach I have for various levels of the limb difference of our patients, and it still can be challenging as every patient is slightly different than the next.”

There are some patients who find that silicone doesn’t work for them, and for those patients, we will make their sockets out of rigid acrylic or thermoplastic. This is the beauty of having sockets custom made — we can figure out what works best for the patient. Another nice aspect of silicone and customization is that you can pick the color of your socket.

SocketListing

You can also pick the color of …

The Frame

For us, frames are not just about creating the structure for your prostheses. They’re also about helping our patients represent themselves. For some that might mean featuring their favorite color:

BOA PDD

For others, it might mean their favorite character:

Emi Labouve Definitive

Or sports team:

Cincinnati Bengals Transradial

In the top and bottom images, you can see a wheel that says BOA on it. That is another customization we offer our patients. The BOA system is a patented system often used in sports shoes that allows the wearer to tighten or loosen the shoe, while wearing it. Stainless steel wires are connected to the turning knob to allow for that tightening. Our Portland prosthetist, Mac: “The BOA system allows for volume fluctuation.” For many patients, that means they can comfortably don, or put on, the device, then tighten it to make sure it doesn’t slip during their busy day. This system is key for individuals who plan on wearing their prosthesis in the gym. While there are many off-the-shelf activity-specific prostheses that we fit our patients with, we also create some activity-specific devices.

The Harness

Every single harness that is made for a patient in each of our Arm Dynamics centers is made by hand by either the prosthetist or the technicians involved in their care. Our Dallas center prosthetist, Rob: “I had no idea how to sew before I got into the profession, but now I can sew a mean stitch.” Harnesses must be created with many different factors in mind: the patient’s range of motion on both their limb different and non-limb different side, the patient’s body size, any breasts or muscles that need to be accommodated, if there is lack of skin mobility due to scarring, etc. These factors will be discussed by the patient’s prosthetist and occupational therapist before a preliminary harness is created. Then once it’s made, the adjusting begins. You can learn more about how we create and customize harnesses in this earlier blog article.

Gerry Listing

Occupational Therapy

Each patient that arrives is an individual, so not only are we customizing their device, our occupational therapists customize the therapy they provide for each patient. They take into account how much they think they can push a patient when it comes to difficult tasks and also what each patient needs and wants to do in their home, work and leisure time. Their goal is to make sure the occupational therapy they are providing not only helps them learn how to use their device, but means that the device is going to work for that patient. This is why it’s crucial that our occupational therapists are upper limb specialists and that they work so closely with our prosthetists to deliver optimal, holistic prosthetic care.

RicardoTim-Listing

So, yes, just because we’re using many off-the-shelf terminal devices to fit our patients, it doesn’t mean we don’t custom create and customize our care process for each person. We're not really selling terminal devices, we're offering prosthetic care and one of the components of that is the terminal device, along with the harness, socket, frame, and occupational therapy. In addition, all the prosthetic care we offer is finished in a very short period of time, with our Comprehensive Accelerated Fitting Process™, meaning most of our patients go from no prosthesis to taking one home, with the knowledge of how to use it, in a week’s time or less. We also create unique hybrid devices when a patient's individual needs call for one.

I know! It’s a lot! That’s part of what makes each of our Arm Dynamics centers so different from other prosthetic care providers. We want to make sure each person walks out of our centers in a timely manner, with a functioning and comfortable prosthesis, which they know how to use. So whatever customization is needed, we’re there, with years of experience.

If you or someone you know would like to be custom fit with a prosthesis from one of our five Arm Dynamics centers, please contact us. If you’d like to leave a comment for us, please do so below.

Subscribe!
Seven Reasons Arm Dynamics Centers Are Different From Other Prosthetic Care Providers
RobilimbWide9x6
What Makes Arm Dynamics Special

Seven Reasons Arm Dynamics Centers Are Different From Other Prosthetic Care Providers

Jul 13, 2021
Our Arm Dynamics Prosthetists
Arm Dynamics Team

Our Arm Dynamics Prosthetists

Nov 9, 2021
Why You May Need to Travel to Find Excellent Upper Limb Prosthetic Care
Prosthesis

Why You May Need to Travel to Find Excellent Upper Limb Prosthetic Care

Nov 25, 2019

No Comments Yet

Let us know what you think