Design & Development of Lower Extremity Paediatric Prosthesis, a Requirement in Developing Countries

There are more than 10 million physically handicapped people in India. A majority of them belong to poor strata of the society. In the present condition prosthetic fitment centers are not sufficient to deal with such large amputee population. Children are mostly victim of society in low per capita income country in general. Children with congenital amputation, loss of limb with street accidents/trauma, frost bite etc need special attention for the prosthetic fitment. More than 80% of major amputations of the lower extremity are attributed to peripheral vascular disease1. About 10 percent of congenital anomalies are treated as, or require, amputation2. As children are in the growing age, the prosthetic device is required to be changed frequently. This accelerated rehabilitation greatly reduced the overall cost of the patient’s care and returned them to full function much faster3. The major constraint in frequent change of prosthetic device in developing country is lack of sufficient number of prosthetic fitment center, skilled prosthetists, paediatric prosthetic kits and low income group of amputee. To face this challenge we have designed a low cost Paediatric prosthetic