Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Adapted Crutches made walk to a man with right hand amputee and left leg fractured

A gentleman came to the Assistive Technology Department at Indian Spinal Injuries Centre to get assistance for independent walking, who has been using a prosthetic hand due to amputation right below elbow and was recently operated at Apollo hospital (New Delhi) for left ankle fracture. The challenge was to make him walk with crutches having right hand prosthetic defected and left leg not weight wearing for 8 weeks.
The full assessment was done to see the possible options available, finally we found that he would be able to use auxiliary crutches but than the issues was to grab the right side independently because he could not make a proper grip to hold the center of the crutch since his prosthetic myoelectric hand was defected due to batteries and sensors faults (which he has been using for the last 20 years)
It was not that hard but a bit cchallenging to adapt the grip the handle which he could slide the prelocked hand into the center of the crutch holder and then lock it for not to come out while walking.
See the pictures and video how a 73 years old man was able to walk and became independent with crutches instead of being wheelchair bound where he needs full assistance to be pushed.



The NRI (lived in Boston, USA), appreciated our work.