Patient Description

This week in ISM, I handed out all of my invitations, had a phone call meeting with my mentor, and started planning out how I want my room to look for FPN. During our phone call, my mentor and I discussed and finalized the patient description for my Final Product, because now that we've actually built both the prosthetic legs, we could justify the decisions we made in regards to the suspension system based off patient characteristics. Since the patient's leg was amputated after a traumatic car accident, this caused serious issues at the distal end of the residual limb. As a result, the additional soreness could be alleviated by using a vacuum system for the finalized prosthesis, because vacuums are better for circulation and don't pull on the extra tissue at the site of the amputation. This skin condition is known as verrucous hyperplasia and having a shuttle lock system only pulls on that redundant tissue even more. Therefore, we decided to use a shuttle lock system as the preparatory prosthesis for about a year, while the leg shrinks down and stabilizes in volume before transitioning into a vacuum system. Also this week, I reviewed the mock speech I gave the week before, so that I could determine what areas needed improvement and what I did well. I realized that I could incorporate more movement during my speech, but that my content and body language remained strong throughout. This upcoming week, I will record another mock video of my entire FPN speech and create a checklist for my volunteers, so that they know exactly what to do during FPN.