The Prosthetics Needs Of Farmers And Ranchers With Upper-Limb Amputations

Abstract

Farming and ranching are among the most hazardous occupations in the United States with many non-fatal accidents resulting in amputation. In addition, those who continue to farm using prostheses are at risk of secondary injuries related to the prosthesis, such as falls, entanglement, and overuse injuries to the intact limb. Furthermore, the hazards of the farm environment are not limited to affecting the adult farmer, but also lead to a higher incidence of amputation among children of farmers than is experienced in children of the general population. Many advances have been made in prosthetics technology since the 1970s, especially with regard to lower-limb prostheses and electric-powered upper-limb prostheses. However, in 2008, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) identified farmers as an underserved population with respect to assistive technology including prosthetics. In response, the Northwestern University Prosthetics-Orthotics Center (NUPOC), as the NIDRR-funded Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center in Prosthetics and Orthotics, partnered with the National AgrAbility Project, a program of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that provides support services to farmers and ranchers with disabilities, to improve prosthetics options available to farmers and ranchers. The goals of this collaborative project include identification of activities supported by or hindered by use of a prosthesis, provide prosthetics-related educational materials to farmers and ranchers and to the prosthetists who serve them, and to improve prosthetics technology through analysis of failed components and engineering development projects. The project has completed the first phase of a two-part survey of farmers, ranchers, and prosthetists.