Importance of Training, Care, and Support in Addressing Limb Loss

•In an initial discussion board posting, discuss the responses to the following questions: ◦What major physical and psychological concerns do Veterans with limb loss face regardless of the generation or specific conflict? ◦In addition to physical rehabilitation programs, what other aspects of care are crucial for positive outcomes for Veterans who suffer limb loss? ◦In Messinger’s article, “Incorporation the prosthetic: Traumatic, limb-loss, rehabilitation, and refigured military bodies”:  Why do you think Henry rejected his prosthetic device? ◾What recommendations would you have suggested that might have improved Henry’s outcome?

Incorporating the prosthetic: Traumatic, limb-loss, rehabilitation and refigured military bodies

Abstract
In this article, I look at the role that context of injury plays in the rehabilitation of military patients who sustained a limb amputation as a result of blast injury trauma in Afghanistan and Iraq. This article contrasts the technologically driven model of rehabilitation produced by the US Armed Forces Amputee Patient Care Program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center with a person centered approach building on work in medical anthropology. In this article, two case studies are contrasted illustrating the reasons behind the rejection of an upper extremity prosthetic device in one example and the acceptance of one in another. I argue that even in light of the incredible advances in medical technique and prosthetic technology, a body and functionality focussed rehabilitation must also pay attention to the subjective experiences of individual patients in terms of their present and their past.