Powered prosthetic hands in very young children

Abstract

Myoelectric prostheses are generally not provided in the United Kingdom for children before the age of 3 1/4 years. Following the introduction of a smaller sized electric hand in the United Kingdom in 1993 the authors decided to introduce electrically powered hands for a group of congenital upper limb deficient children at a much younger age compared to normal practice. Eleven children were introduced to powered prosthetic hands at an average age of 20.6 months. At the review carried out for the purpose of this paper, 72.7% of these children appeared to be successfully using these powered prostheses. Fitting these young children with powered prostheses and encouraging acceptance and operation of the prostheses appeared to be much less of a problem than might have been anticipated. The parents of all these children have very much liked the introduction of powered hands at this early age and have contributed positively to the prosthetic programme. The authors' experience suggests that introduction of a powered prosthesis at a much earlier age can be a more suitable alternative than provision of a body- powered prosthetic device while waiting to reach an older age before a powered prosthesis is considered.