Abstract

The World Health Organization has predicted that the number of people needing assistive devices globally is beyond two billion by 2050 and only one in 10 people in need has access to assistive products. In sub Saharan African, population living with disability represents approximately 78 million. Limited access to rehabilitative services have been observed. Amputations leave subjects to several forms of disability. Distal amputations are commonly due to work related accidents, traffic road accident, and other sort of trauma or diseases. This leaves a lot of stigmatization associated with psychological aspect of the patient. In addition, the appearance and the aesthetic aspect of finger prosthesis play significant role in patient life. However, the rehabilitation of person with finger amputation in developing countries remains very challenging for technicians due to training facilities and lack of appropriate materials. Moreover, the silicone technology has not been introduced in many undergraduate program in the Prosthetics and Orthotics schools in the low resource countries. It is estimated that only 5–15% of people with disabilities can get access to assistive products in the low-resource countries. Previous studies stated that only 5% of the population of people with disabilities could get access to rehabilitation services in Ghana. Recently a study in West Africa reported that graduates wished to introduce silicone technology in their programme. This instructional course will describe in details the rehabilitation of patients in need of silicone prosthesis in sub-Sahara African country Ghana.

Statement of the objective / learning objectives

Participants, both in rehabilitation and general field will be aware of key challenges and possible sustainable development of silicone technology in developing countries.