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SaeboFlex

A goal of many stroke survivor patients is to regain functionality in their hands. Frequently stoke patients are able close their hands, but find it more difficult to open their fists, which results in the inability to use the hand, Cowan said.

"There's amazing new technology out there that benefits neurological function," Cowan said.

Enter the SaeboFlex, a custom orthosis that will support a patient's wrist and hand, allowing the hand to open easier. While parts of the brain that knew a certain function may be damaged, the SaeboFlex helps to create new pathways for old activities through repetition.

The SaeboFlex was brought to Spalding in 2007, but required extensive staff instruction before it could be fully implemented.

"One year - it's taken that long to really get people trained and the program going," Cowan said.

Now, the SaeboFlex has been one of the staples for many patient success stories.

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FAQ's - SaeboFlex

Give Ferny Back His Legs! Now!

Seriously.  That's so not cool. Give him back his legs.

Missing Legs Could Cost Taxpayers

An Omaha teen's new prosthetic legs are missing and if they're not found it could cost taxpayers $30,000.

Ferny Martinez hasn't been left without legs to stand on. He's now using spares. "These are like old fashioned."

Taxpayers, through Medicaid, recently purchased two modern prosthetic legs made just to fit the 17-year-old.

"It's extremely rare for someone to walk around with two of these above the knee," says prosthetist Tad Meyer. "It’s difficult to do. It’s very taxing on the individual."

The hydraulics on the demo prosthesis show better movement for the teenager who lost his legs to a childhood disease. "I’ll be able to walk normal like you guys do," says Martinez.

While still breaking the new prosthetic legs in, he would alternate with the old ones. His mother says in a dispute with a landlord she found the locks changed and the new artificial legs missing from their north Omaha duplex.

"We were moving our stuff out, but still staying there and came back the next day and they were gone," says mom Veronica Jacob.

With two prosthetic legs missing, taxpayers are out $30,000. That's what it would cost to replace the two specially made for one person who receives state assistance. "We would have to look into that, I don't know what Medicaid would do on that for another set of legs," says Jan Burton of Burton Prosthetics.

Martinez says taxpayers won't have to pay again if whoever walked away with his artificial legs tells the prosthetic makers where to find them. "They were hydraulic and I’ll be able to walk better."

Police say the missing artificial legs would be considered a civil dispute between the tenant and landlord. The owner of the duplex lives in Maryland and like the tenant, efforts to contact the landlord have been unsuccessful.

Anyone who knows where to find the missing artificial legs is asked to call Burton Prosthetics at 402-384-1334.

It was the Philadelphia VA Medical Center's first Amputee Golf Clinic.

“Critical Condition” to Premier on PBS September 30th

Roger Weisberg’s Critical Condition is a powerful, eye-opening look at the health care crisis in America. In an election season when health care reform has become one of the nation’s most hotly debated issues, Critical Condition lays out the human consequences of an increasingly expensive and inaccessible system. Using the same cinéma vérité style he employed with “Waging a Living” (P.O.V., 2006), Weisberg allows ordinary hard-working Americans to tell their harrowing stories of battling critical illnesses without health insurance.

Hector Cardenas, a warehouse manager in Los Angeles with diabetes, opted to amputate his infected foot before losing his job and medical benefits. When his insurance coverage lapses, he struggles to repair his broken temporary prosthesis on his own. He cannot walk properly or earn money without a permanent prosthesis, but he cannot afford the permanent prosthesis without a job that offers basic medical benefits.

Adding insult to injury, Hector’s old insurance company retroactively denies reimbursement for his original prosthesis, and saddles Hector with a $9,000 bill. He falls five months behind on rent and is forced to move into a single room in a nearby motel. After a year without finding a job, Hector’s perseverance pays off and he is hired as a warehouse manager at a new company. He hopes that he can stay healthy enough to survive the probation period until he qualifies for insurance, but he still worries that the company’s policy will not cover his pre-existing conditions.

Critical Condition is a production of Public Policy Productions, Inc., in association with Thirteen/WNET New York and American Documentary | P.O.V.

Funding for Critical Condition is provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Charles A. Frueauff Foundation, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York Community Trust, Park Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, Public Broadcasting Service, Silverweed Foundation, Spunk Fund and the Trull Foundation.

About the filmmaker:
Veteran documentary filmmaker Weisberg’s 30 previous films have earned over 100 awards, including Emmy, duPont-Columbia and Peabody awards, as well as two Academy Award nominations (in 2001 for “Sound and Fury” and in 2003 for “Why Can’t We Be a Family Again?”). He has made the American health care system a special focus of his work with such films as “What’s Ailing Medicine,” “Our Children at Risk,” “Borderline Medicine,” “Who Lives-Who Dies” and “Can’t Afford to Grow Old.”

Foot Prototype

LOUISVILLE Colorado- Tensegrity Prosthetics Inc. in Louisville has received a two-year $750,000 grant to continue the redesign and manufacture of prototypes of a flexible prosthetic foot.

Jerome Rifkin, founder of Tensegrity Prosthetics, said he will receive $415,000 of the Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institutes of Health the first year.

He plans to spend the money on finishing the redesign of the prosthetic foot and then create small and large batches of prototypes for testing.

"I hope to be able to stabilize the product, increasing the efficiency and decreasing the number of falls incurred by amputees using current prototypes," he said. The prosthetic foot mimics the biomechanics of the human foot. Tests show it requires less energy to use, and amputees testing the beta version report more comfort and agility when walking.

The prosthetic is made of titanium, aircraft aluminum and steel-fiber rope. It bends like the normal foot and ankle, conforming to the terrain under foot, while providing a sense of being well-connected to the ground.

In 2005, Rifkin received a two-year, $200,000 SBIR grant from the NIH for research and has raised another $150,000 in venture backing.

He has received positive feedback from amputees who have participated in clinical tests of earlier prototypes, but the prosthetic's durability is still the challenge.

"Before I can begin manufacturing these, they need to be able to last for at least two years," he told the Boulder County Business Report in August. The durability problem is caused mainly because the prosthetic (foot) is so flexible, the very attribute that makes it appealing to amputees.

Rifkin received an IQ Award in August from the Business Report for his innovation.

Source

Qantas Gets a Gold Medal in Buzz Killing

Congratulations Christine! Thumbs up.

Boo Qantas.  Thumbs down.

From the CanberraTimes.com

ACT paralympian Christine Wolf's return home yesterday was soured when staff on her flight from
Sydney refused to allow the gold medallist to take her prosthetic legs as carry-on luggage.

Wolf whose left leg is amputated above the knee was already on the plane from Sydney to Canberra when the Qantas attendant refused to allow her to bring the valuable prosthetics into the cabin. Australian coach Iryna Dvoskina, who travelled back to Canberra with Ms Wolf yesterday, said she would make a formal complaint.

''[The prosthetics] are just so sensitive, we never check it into luggage, we take it on the plane all the time and now, on our last flight after two months away and we are just very happy to be home, it was just so unhelpful and unfriendly,'' Ms Dvoskina said.... READ MORE

Covered Breasts

AABCP Efforts Rewarded:
The Prosthetic Parity Act (S.3517) Includes External Breast Prostheses 

Houston, TX -- The American Association of Breast Care Professionals (AABCP) proudly announces the introduction on September 18, 2008 of The Prosthetic Parity Act (S 3517) into the Senate.  S 3517 was Sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Co-Sponsored by Senator Russell D Feingold, (WI), Senator Daniel Inouye (HI),  and Senator Tom Harkin (IA). An historic occasion, with its companion bill HR 5615, S3517 is the first Federal bill to address the diminishing prosthetic device coverage by private insurers.

From the Casper Star-Tribune Online.

Ted Vlahos was more than eager to fulfill his young daughter’s birthday wish. Jenna wanted Riley, a horse that Vlahos had operated on, to be well enough for her to ride on her birthday.

Jenna got her wish. In a picture Vlahos snapped, a grinning Jenna sits on the back of Riley, a horse with a prosthetic leg. It isn’t your typical horse-and-rider picture, yet Vlahos said there isn’t much about Riley that is typical.

“She definitely has a personality,” the Sheridan veterinarian said. “She is extremely gentle and was one of the smartest horses we ever worked with.”

Today, Riley is a healthy buckskin horse that gallops, bucks and kicks. When Vlahos first saw Riley several months ago, she was suffering from sores on her left hind leg and a bone infection. Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, had called Vlahos into action, knowing he was one of a few veterinarians who could save the animal's life.

“There are only a handful of people in America that have done these amputations on horses,” Vlahos said....In May, a team from Best Friends brought Riley and two other horses from Utah to Sheridan. For a week, Vlahos put Riley in and out of an Anderson sling, a support apparatus in which the horse would recover after the amputation to allow her stump to heal correctly. The next week, Riley endured surgery to remove her left hind leg. During the operation, Vlahos found a distinct difference in the infected and healthy bone. The veterinarian wrapped the animal's tendons around the bone and sutured them in place to form a thick pad, which would cushion her prosthesis.

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St. Pete College O&P Grand Opening

PINELLAS PARK – St. Petersburg College’s new J.E. Hanger College of Orthotics and Prosthetics officially opened on Sept. 4, but the highlight of the program was a double amputee who has become an inspiration to handicapped people everywhere.

Warren Macdonald, 43, of Melbourne, Australia still climbs mountains and participates in other outdoor activities despite the loss of both legs.

Holloway wins silver medal at Paralympic Games

Katie Holloway, a 2004 graduate of Lake Stevens High School, won a silver medal with her U.S. sitting volleyball teammates on Sunday as the Americans lost to China in the gold-medal match at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.