The upper-extremity prosthetics armamentarium.

1 Director, Army Prosthetics Research Laboratory, Walter Reed Army Hospital; member, Upper-Extremity Technical Committee, ACAL, NRC. The word "armamentarium" is defined as "the equipment, instruments, apparatus, or paraphernalia used by the practitioner of medicine." As applied to artificial limbs, it refers to the array of components necessary for the prescription fitting of prostheses in relationship to the site of amputation. In the prosthetics armamentarium, it is desirable that a complete range of components be available in order to provide satisfactory prostheses for all sites of upper-extremity amputations. A few gaps still remain in the present armamentarium of devices, but such temporary inadequacies are in the area of special cases, such as in transcarpal and forequarter amputations and in children's prostheses. The few remaining gaps are being rapidly filled, and supplementary components for fortifying the present armamentarium, such as additional hand sizes, are under consideration at the present time. The fact that devices now exist in each category of necessary arm components does not necessarily mean that they are the ultimate. They might even be interim devices, but they do permit prescription fitting of arm prostheses to a degree of efficiency heretofore unattainable. As a device is made available for each category of the armamentarium, improvements are attempted in these individual devices to increase their efficiency and usefulness to the amputee. New models and methods of operation are being exploited in the hope of providing, eventually, even more efficient restorative prostheses. It is the purpose here to provide brief descriptions of the functions provided by the basic units of the present upper-extremity armamentarium. For a more detailed treatment of the devices and the philosophy underlying their design, reference may be had to Human Limbs and Their Substitutes (McGraw-Hill, in press) and to the Manual of Upper-Extremity Prosthetics (University of California at Los Angeles, 1952).