An optimal prosthesis prescription is vital for restoring mobility and societal participation in people with lower limb loss. Clinicians try their best to choose prosthetic components that best match each individual user’s needs, abilities, and goals, yet there is insufficient empirical evidence to guide prosthesis prescription. Further, there are limited tools to facilitate patient engagement in this process. In this symposium, we propose a new paradigm for prosthetic component selection and prosthesis prescription with a focus on prosthetic feet. Guided by precision rehabilitation and patient-centered care approaches, we will discuss thematically related, innovative research areas aimed at developing evidence-based tools and methods for providers and patients to enhance prosthetic foot selection and prescription. Our interdisciplinary group of presenters (physician-scientist, prosthetist-scientist, PT-epidemiologist, and psychologist with expertise in implementation science) will discuss the following innovative solutions that overcome some of the limitations and challenges in the current prosthesis prescription paradigm: an evidence-based clinician-facing decision support tool to aid in matching patients to a prescription that aligns with their future mobility level (including demonstration of use of the tool); a complimentary patient-facing decision aid that helps patients understand various prosthetic foot features to allow them to participate in a shared decision that aligns with their priorities and preferences; a patient-centered ‘test-drive’ strategy for prosthetic prescription using a programmable robotic prosthetic foot to emulate commercial feet; and implementation science methods used to determine barriers and facilitators to translating these innovations to clinical practice.
Statement of the objective / learning objectives
• Identify prosthetic foot prescription challenges.
• Engage with a clinician-facing decision support tool to assist in mobility prediction.
• Understand how patient-facing decision aids facilitate shared decision-making.
• Discover methods of incorporating prosthesis user input into foot selection.
