Innovations in Amputation Care

Dear Colleagues,

Due to increasing numbers of vascular and metabolic disease, continuous military conflicts worldwide, and failing former limb-salvaging reconstructions, amputation is one of the most common surgical interventions in hospital operating rooms worldwide. These numbers underline the need for developments in amputation surgery and rehabilitation. Patients‘ needs to regain their body integrity and restart their daily activities after limb loss are manifold—as are their etiologies. Providing successful amputation medicine is therefore only possible in both a highly specialized but also multidisciplinary setting with an awareness of linking the interfaces between the patient, surgeons, orthopedic technicians, ergo-physio- and pain therapist as well as psychologists in a timely manner. Rehabilitation starts with a multiprofessional team in the planning of the surgery and/or fitting: informed patient consent, involving peers, appropriate postoperative care with early shaping of the residual limb, evaluation using computer-assisted gait analysis for the selection of the appropriate prosthesis, and adaption to the rehabilitation training of upcoming techniques such as motor imagery. Innovations such as targeted muscle or sensory reinnervation (TMR, TSR), bone anchored prosthesis (BAP), agonist–antagonist myoneural interface (AMI), and regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces (RPNI) are examples of the successful and innovative confluence of surgery and technology, which can be used for enhanced functionality and acceptance of the prothesis and seem to decrease amputation-related pain. Digital transformation including technologies as wearables and virtual reality might be essential in the field of amputation care to link individual patient needs with modern technical equipment and rehabilitative arrangements to finally improve the patient (-reported) outcome.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Medicina.

Dr. Gerhard M. Hobusch
Dr. Jennifer Ernst
Guest Editors

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• bone-anchored prosthesis
• targeted muscle reinnervation
• amputation medicine
• targeted sensory reinnervation
• artificial intelligence
• motor imagery
• digital transformation
• patient-reported outcome measurement