Amputees: The Problems of Living

Amputees: The Problems of Living a Normal Life

Losing an arm or a leg is a great loss. The simplest things that we take for granted become terribly difficult or impossible to do. A person who has lost their arm, for example, especially if it is their dominant arm, may have trouble working the remote control on the TV set, dressing himself, driving the car, and cooking meals. For the person in a wheelchair, navigation is a constant problem -- getting in and out of buildings and the car, for instance, which used to be easy, is now a problem requiring a logistical strategy. Most people want to be independent. They don't want to have to depend on others to feed them, tie their shoes, write their letters, or get them into bed. They just want to be normal. When a social stigma is added to all this, the problems of amputees become quite complex.

The problem of loss of limbs has increased drastically with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is a different kind of war where homemade bombs and incendiary devices are exploding unexpectedly all the time. Blasts that would previously have killed them now inflict terrible injuries on the soldiers and frequently include loss of limbs (Aldhous, 2006; and Querna, Brink, et al., 2004). The problem is that amputees want to take up normal lives. In the words of an expression they use, they want to "scare the dog," that is, they want to live full and complete lives (Rader & Valenzano, 2005). The difficulties of rehabilitation range from learning to use a prosthetic limb to fitting in with the rest of society. Many people who are likely to see them as disabled, cripples, and pitiable, which doesn't help a person to feel normal.

According to the United States Army, Walter Reed hospital has devoted major resources to the treatment of amputees. A new amputee care center was built in 2002 because of so many casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom. The center is comprehensive and collaborative, including all the supportive services needed to treat amputees. It has occupational and physical therapy, social work, psychiatry, nursing, counseling and other specialties and is designed for continuing care. The VA also provides amputees with voice-activated laptop computers. Sometimes many surgeries are required before a prosthetic leg or arm (or both) can be fitted. "Interdisciplinary teams are agents of change whose impact is the result of collective collaborations, not the strengths or abilities of the individual team members. The focus is on the individual who is often a member of the team assessing and planning for his or her future" (Radar & Valenzano, 2005, p. 38). In other words, the patient has to have a part in planning his/her recovery. In other years and former wars, the amputee often felt like an object with all the decisions being made by doctors and "third party payers." Pike & Nattress (Amputee Resource Foundation of America web site) point out, "...each of us...must participate in the decisions that affect the quality of our lives" (p. 1). The goal is for amputees to reach the highest level of independence and function they can in areas of daily life. Amputees also must be trained in how to use myoelectric and body-powered prosthetics.

Of course, not all amputees are injured in the war. Take someone like Dan Witkowski, a skier. In December 2003 he went into the backcountry for a few hours of skiing. He went alone and did not tell anyone he was going. Five days later, a rescue team located him, delirious and nearly dead. He had frostbite and gangrene in both legs. But less than one year later he was skiing again thanks to technological advancements in prosthetics and a lot of spirit ("On resilience and optimism," 2005). Another example is Cameron Clapp, 19, who went to sleep on the railroad tracks after too much partying. He was hit by a train and lost his right arm and both legs just above the knees. A company called Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics fitted him with computerized legs that allow him to compete in track events ("A life without limits," 2005).