A team of researchers from the Extremity Trauma and Amputation Center of Excellence, the Center for the Intrepid, and the University of Washington, including W. Lee Childers, PhD, CP, and Joan E. Sanders, PhD, conducted a study to better understand the skin’s physiological response to repetitive stress caused by prosthetic socket loading.
The objective of the research was to develop a physical system that mechanically stressed the skin in a controlled manner and then implement infrared imaging, which characterizes the skin’s temperature response, and optical coherence tomography, which characterizes vessel diameter changes over time in the skin, to facilitate design of a diagnostic tool to determine if a prosthesis user’s skin can adapt to tolerate stress from the socket. Pressures on the residual limbs of prosthesis users are far greater than the stresses normally experienced in able-bodied individuals, according to the study, and the study results may inform treatment strategies.
The system the researchers developed effectively detected a peak outcome (temperature and vessel area) with both imaging modalities, according to the authors. The system’s ability to maintain the loading throughout and begin imaging to capture the peak provided promise for expanded use to better understand the skin’s physiological response to loading in prosthesis users, the authors concluded, which may optimize patient outcomes.
The open-access study, “A device for characterizing skin physiological response to mechanical loading in transtibial prosthesis users,” was published in Sensors.
