Identifying effective interventions to maintain bone health in lower limb amputees

This project, funded by the Veterans Health Innovation Fund from the Office for Veterans' Affairs, aims to identify effective interventions to maintain and improve bone health and reverse bone degradation in military amputees. Interventions to be investigated during the project are prosthetic design, including load transfer between the prosthetic and the residuum; and the development of novel rehabilitation regimes, aimed at mechanically stimulating regions of bone known to suffer deterioration, indicated by a reduction in bone mineral density (BMD) following amputation.

• Can prosthetic socket design be altered to better stimulate bone in the residuum?
• Can a new rehabilitation regime be developed to stimulate bone in the residuum?
• What impact does direction fixation have on the loading of bone in the residuum?

Lower-limb amputees from the ADVANCE cohort.