Monthly Archives: June 2017
O’Brien Prostheses Donation
Many thanks go out to Mr. Bruce O’Brien owner of O’Brien Prostheses and Orthotics for producing and donating a below the knee and an above the knee prosthesis for two of our patients in Guatemala. There are many patients with infected non-unions or amputations in Guatemala that simply have to live with their impairment, as they have no access to quality prosthetics. These are very difficult problems to treat, even here in the United States requiring wide excision of the infected bone, specialized fixators that accommodate bone transport techniques, months of treatment and bone grafting, all of which are very expensive. Often, an amputation and the fitting of a good prosthesis is the best treatment for a non-functional limb.
We performed the BKA ( below the knee amputation) on our patient for an infected non-union during our Spring 2016 mission and made a mold of his residual during the Fall 2016 mission and presented it to Mr. O’Brien who completed a prosthesis that fit beautifully and allowed the patient to become ambulatory almost immediately (See the video of the patient 48 hours after receiving his prosthesis in the Completed Missions section of the web site). As the result of the gracious generosity and talents of Mr. O’Brien, our patient will be able to return to work and take care of his family.
Mr. O’Brien also completed a prosthesis for one of our patients who had undergone an above the knee amputation (AKA) several years prior. We had completed a mold of her residual during our Fall 2016 mission, but when we evaluated her to fit her prosthesis, she had lost an extreme amount of weight as the result of a recurrence of her colon cancer and the prosthetic socket is now too large, but fortunately, can be resized.
Bruce, many thanks for your kind generosity, your superb talents and for your continued support of MOA! Many lives have been greatly enriched as the result of your selfless contributions!
Ed Atwell, M.D.
