A team of researchers conducted a study to assess the relationship between gender, geography, and employment status on mobility among lower-limb prosthesis users. They found that employment was associated with greater odds of reaching increased mobility, and addressing factors such as returning to work may help improve mobility levels among prosthesis users. The team also found that gender and geography were also significantly associated with mobility.
The researchers performed a cross-sectional analysis of 7,524 patient mobility outcomes completed between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2019, and used a regression model of independent variables: age, gender, region, employment status, and amputation level.
The convenience sample consisted of unilateral prosthesis users who completed clinical outcomes within different prosthetic clinics across the United States. People were grouped by age into two groups, 65 years and older and younger than 65 years, and stratified by higher and lower mobility. Mobility was entered as the dependent variable. Functional mobility was measured through the Prosthetic Limb Users’ Survey of Mobility v1.2 (PLUS-M).
The average age for prosthesis users who attained increased PLUS-M scores was 48.6 ± 12.1 for the cohort younger than 65 years and 52.1 ± 9.8 for the cohort 65 years and older.
Approximately 26.3 percent of the sample were women. Only 23.6 percent of respondents reported being employed at the time of the survey. Men had a higher frequency of achieving increased mobility than women (52 percent versus 37 percent).
Approximately 70 percent of the employed people younger than 65 achieved increased PLUS-M scores compared with 38 percent of those who were unemployed. Amputation secondary to diabetes/vascular diseases was the most frequent cause of amputation.
The open-access study, “GGEM: Gender, geography, and employment differences based on mobility levels among lower limb prosthesis users living in the United States,” was published in Prosthetics and Orthotics International.
