this webpages gives a general overview of body-powered vs. electric-powered UE prosthesis. Advantages and disadvantages, improvements, and types of terminal devices. There is some interesting information on the different types of hands and gives info re: an experimental hand being engineered by students at Rutgers University that can be controlled through human thought.
Awesome TEDtalk by Todd Kuiken about Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (the future of UE prothesis). This is a much watch video about the future of UE prosthesis. Targeted Muscle Reinnervation is an intuitive way to use hand and elbow prothesis with your thoughts. This is a better way to control your arm and grasp patterns. And hopefully in the future this technology will allow its users to 'feel' sensations in their prosthetic hand. Amanda, the patient talks about how the most important thing to her in working with children was the ability to clap again. Great video! Very informative.
This is a really great article form AOTA about the Occupational practitioners role in rehabilitation for someone with an UE amputation. It breaks the rehabilitation down into stages: Acute Phase --> Pre-Prosthetic Training Phase --> Basic Prosthetic Training Phase --> Advanced Prosthetic Phase--> Discharge Planning
This is just a brief fact sheet from the AOTA on UE amputations and OTs role in the treatment of clients living with one. There is statistical information regarding amputations, how OT can help, and OTs specific role in the treatment.
Tons of information of UE amputation! Might be a good handout to give to a patient on educating how you are going to help them throughout the road to recovery. It also talks about prosthesis training when you get to that point in therapy.
I thought this article went good with the topics we have been covering. All of the articles I found previous to this one were very long to read. I like this one because it is short and covers OT in UE Rehab. It discusses all of the areas that we address in this rehabilitation. It would be a good article for a client to read that is not to wordy. I also like the list of needs met by interventions in the article.
I found this website that talks about services provided by this company that specializes in OT for UE amputees. I found it really cool that there are centers that specialize in just this. The only downfall I see is that there is only 5 centers in the whole US.
This was a great article about a woman who is an OT and her insight to working with people with UE Amputations. The article had great information about what OT is all about and how she and her team helps those with UE amputations.
This article explains what targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) is for UE prostheses, the functional capacity increase over conventional myoelectric controlled UE prostheses, and OT's role in rehab with this type of device and patient.
Are you in the Living Zone or in the Unfortunately, many of us have found ourselves living in the Tolerance Zone - tolerating our limited strength and mobility. We've given up fighting the battle and have come to accept our current limitations as inevitable.
I thought this website was really interesting, because it tells us what to expect for UE and LE surgeries. Hip replacement protocols are on here too (total, anterior, posterior). it also tells us what to look for like infection or swelling, or what modalities to use. I hope this is helpful or interesting to read about!
This site lists and gives a great diagram of the levels of UE amputation. It also describes the different types of prosthetics and what they are best used for.
This is a Fact sheet from the AOTA on UE therapy and an overview of the frameworks of reference that should be adhered to by the occupational therapist in treatment. It even list areas of intervention involving such injuries that I had never considered.
Treatments for disorders of the UE. There are pictures of the devices, the indicated diagnosis, purpose, and benefits. A great resource if you work in a clinic that does splinting/orthotics. These are custom fabricated and there are benefits associated with making your client's splints-removable, adjustable, reform-able, can get wet, and can be cleaned.
I mainly have this in here for the pictures of the splints. They have several different kinds and they look way better than the ones we made in lab lol.