The editorial also discussed the importance of residuum health, the emergence of new bionic solutions, and the need for more information about rehabilitation and prosthetic care bionic solutions. The authors suggested that while current research and their analysis contributed to this knowledge effort and identified knowledge gaps, next steps would involve further discussion and research, movement from concept to standard of care, and “formation of a global ecosystem where a set of organizations and services will integrate the value chain of these bionic solutions through various commercial models.”
The authors are Laurent Frossard, PhD, a bionic limb scientist and professor of bionics at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia; Silvia Conforto, PhD, who leads the biomedical engineering group at Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy; and Oskar C. Aszmann, PhD, the director of the clinical department of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
“More information is needed to elucidate the relationships between surgical procedure, clinical care, prosthetic fitting, and outcomes of current and emerging interventions (e.g., efficacy and safety) that are critical for establishing an evidence-based reasonable, and eventually best, standard of care for current and future bionic solutions,” they wrote.
To read the editorial, “Bionics limb prostheses: Advances in clinical and prosthetic care,” visit Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences.