Numbers and percents on amputations 50,000 new amputations every year in USA based on information from National Center for Health Statistics ratio of upper limb to lower limb amputation is 1:4 (4) most common is partial hand amputation with loss of 1 or more fingers, 61,000 next common is loss of one arm, 25,000 existence of 350,000 persons with amputations in USA, 30% have upper limb loss of this, wrist and hand amputations are estimated to make up 10% of upper limb population transradial amputations make up 60% of total wrist and hand amputations which means 70% of all persons with upper limb amputations have amputations distal to the elbow(3) In US 41,000 persons are registered who had an amputation of hand or complete arm (5) 60% of arm amputations are between ages 21 and 64 years and 10% are under 21 years of age (4) Causes leading to amputation Reasons for amputation include cardiovascular disease, traumatic accidents, infection, tumors, nerve injury (trophic ulceration), and congenital anomalies (1) most frequent causes of upper limb amputation are trauma and cancer, followed by vascular complications of disease right arm more frequently involved in work related injuries Congenital upper limb deficiency has an incidence of approximately 4.1 per 10000 live births (4) Table 1 - Causes of Upper Extremity Amputation (in percent) Congenital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.9% Tumor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2% Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8% Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 77% SOURCE: E. J. Davies, B R. Fnz, and F. W Cl!pplnger, “Amputees and Their Pros-theses,” Artificial Limbs 14(2) 19-48, 1970 (2) only half of all upper extremity amputees ever receive prosthetic services Poll of all manufacturers of terminal devices for prostheses revealed approximately 10,000 units sold per year (1) 30-50% of handicapped persons do not use prosthetic hand regularly(5) References: (1)http://cosmos.ot.buffalo.edu/t2rerc/programs/supplypush/devices.handt.htm (2)http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1984/8405/840504.PDF (3)http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~rfw586/papers/2000%20IEEE%20World% 20Congress%20-%20MO%20E325-4%20-%20Powered%20Fingers.pdf (4)http://www.aapmr.org/zdocs/assembly/handouts/M116.pdf (5)http://www.iai.fzk.de/medtech/fluid/literatur/icra_fzk_hand.pdf