Special Populations Require Special Skills

When comparing data between men and women, women:

• Wait longer to receive a prosthesis¹
• Are successfully fitted with a prosthesis 43 percent of the time (compared to 69 percent of men)²
• Report about 1.5 hours less daily prosthesis use³
• Report higher rates of anxiety, depression, worse body image, and higher residual-limb pain levels⁴

“What works for the average-sized man may not potentially work for the average-sized woman,” said Jason Maikos, PhD, director of the VISN 2 Gait and Motion Analysis Laboratory at the VA New York Harbor Health Care System. The O&P EDGE spoke with Maikos in 2024 in “Addressing the Unique Needs of Women Who Wear Prostheses.”

“Individualizing care, I’m calling it gender-aware care, is about asking questions and adjusting your preconceived biases of how a certain person might want their prosthesis to look or function,” Nicole Walker, MS, CPO, a research prosthetist/orthotist for the Minneapolis VA Health Care System told The O&P EDGE at the time.

For a limited time, read 2024’s “Addressing the Unique Needs of Women Who Wear Prostheses” without a subscription.

References

1. Wait longer to receive a prosthesis: “250 gender disparities in the acquisition of lower extremity prosthetics following major limb amputation”

2. Are successfully fitted with a prosthesis 43% of the time (compared to 69% of men): “Gender differences in amputation outcome” 

3. Report about 1.5 hours less daily prosthesis use: “Gender differences in prosthesis-related outcomes among veterans: Results of a national survey of U.S. veterans”  

4. Report higher rates of anxiety, depression, worse body image, and higher residual-limb pain levels: “Differences in prosthetic prescription between men and women veterans after transtibial or transfemoral lower-extremity amputation: A longitudinal cohort study (2005–2018)”  

Read More

“Amputee data dive #3: Limb loss and sex/gender”

https://livingwithamplitude.com/amputee-statistics-community-survey-gender-splits/

Lower limb amputations: Differences between the genders and long-term survival

https://journals.lww.com/poijournal/abstract/2007/31030/lower_limb_amputations__differences_between_the.6.aspx

A national survey of prosthesis use in veterans with major upper limb amputation: Comparisons by gender

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pmrj.12351

Why do women wait longer for prosthetic care?

https://livingwithamplitude.com/article/women-prosthetic-care-health-disparities/