A team of researchers explored relationships between patient-specific characteristics and initial ankle-foot prosthesis prescription patterns among US service members with unilateral transtibial limb loss. The researchers were able to use the identified characteristics to correctly classify 72 percent of all first prostheses prescribed.
The retrospective review of health records identified 174 individuals with unilateral transtibial limb loss who received care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center between 2001 and 2019. The patient-specific factors included demographics, participant duty status at injury and amputation, amputation etiology, and timing between injury, amputation, and initial prescription. The type of first prescribed ankle-foot prosthesis was categorized as energy storing and return-nonarticulating; energy storing and return-articulating; or computer controlled.
The researchers concluded that sex, amputation etiology, time from injury to initial prescription, and time from amputation to initial prescription differed by type of initial prosthesis prescription. Service members with shorter intervals between injury and initial prescription and amputation and initial prescription, and those injured by combat blast, were more likely to receive a nonarticulating device.
Incorporating sex, time from injury to initial prescription, time from amputation to initial prescription, and amputation etiology as predictors of prosthesis type allowed the researchers to correctly classify most of the first prostheses prescribed.
The open-access study, “Characterization of initial ankle-foot prosthesis prescription patterns in U.S. Service members following unilateral transtibial amputation,” was published in Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fresc.2023.1235693/full?utm_source=F-NTF&utm_medium=EMLX&utm_campaign=PRD_FEOPS_20170000_ARTICLE
