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- Talk
- 22/09/2022
- UK
Maintaining Musculoskeletal Health for Lower Limb Amputees (BORS Revalidation)
Description
The session features Salma Chaudhury introducing a critical discussion on musculoskeletal health, particularly in relation to lower limb amputees. The collaborative work presented involves contributions from surgeons, engineers, and healthcare professionals, focusing on understanding musculoskeletal deterioration mechanisms and the impact of altered mechanical load on amputees, including military personnel and civilians, especially the aging population. The first speaker, Dr. Andrew Phillips, elaborates on advanced modeling techniques for predicting bone health in amputees, specifically utilizing musculoskeletal and finite element approaches to analyze bone responses to mechanical stimuli. He discusses the implications of finding correlations between load modifications post-amputation and potential bone degradation. Dr. Phillips emphasizes the importance of these findings in informing rehabilitation strategies and prosthetic design to enhance quality of life and reduce bone density loss risks.
The next speaker, Flight Lieutenant David Caine, explores the bone mineral density loss in military amputees, illustrating how trauma and amputation can lead to localized osteopenia rather than systemic osteoporosis. He presents data from the Advanced Study cohort on how combat-related injuries impact bone health, emphasizing that alterations in loading patterns post-injury are significant risk factors for stress fractures.
Louise McMenemy follows with a discussion on osseointegration as a solution for above-knee amputees, highlighting the challenges these patients face with conventional socket designs due to complex injuries. She outlines the long-term benefits of osseointegration in improving mobility and reducing the burden of secondary health complications. Finally, Alex Dickinson concludes with insights into how finite element analysis can enhance prosthetic socket design, underlining the need for integrating patient data and clinician feedback to create effective and individualized socket solutions.