Gel Liners vs. TEC custom interface

Gel Liners vs. TEC custom interface

Bill Lifford

1/5/2000

Hello everybody,

I was wondering if any of you have any first-hand
experience with the TEC custom interface or the
TEC Profile liner.

A client of mine is a 35 yr. old female, approx
105 lbs, with a roughly 2 BK residuum that is
quite bony around the fibular head, the distal cut
end of the tibia and tibial crest. She has been
walking with a preparatory prosthesis that
includes a pelite liner and silipos gel socks.
She walks quite well but her bony prominences are
somewhat painful despite socket reliefs,
fenestrations, alignment changes, etc.

I originally had thought to use a gel liner such
as the Alpha when casting/measuring for her
definitive prosthesis, but I am curious about the
TEC custom interface and its material's flow
characteristics. It would seem that (if I
understand correctly) the flow of the urethane
material would do a great deal to evenly
distribute the pressures on her residuum during
weightbearing, possibly better than would an Alpha
or other gel liner without the flow
characteristics of the urethane.

The problem is that her insurance is unlikely to
cover this expensive interface and she has said
she'd pay out of pocket if need be, as she is
eager to walk more than she does. I know that
paying out of pocket would be burdensome, so I
want to make sure we are going in the right
direction before she commits her $$ to the cause.

have any of you worn either the custom interface
or the profile liner? Was the weight penalty
worth it? Are the qualities of flow and
pressure distribution as claimed? Most
importantly, if you had to pay out of pocket for
the item, would you still use it?

Thanks in advance for your assistance with this.
I have posted this to both O&P-L and Amp-L, and
will gladly post a summary of all replies on both
lists within a few days. Please respond to me
privately.

Bill Lifford, C.P.

PS to Wayne R.: I set my wrap long lines
feature to 50 characters and am sending this in
plain text. Has this cleared up the readablility
problems?? Let me know!

                          ********************
OANDP-L is a forum for the discussion of topics related to Orthotics and
Prosthetics.
Public commercial postings are forbidden. Responses to inquiries of a
commercial nature should not be sent to the entire oandp-l list. Responses
should be collected and reposted by the person asking the question.
Send a message to the list by sending to: <Email Address Redacted> To unsubscribe,
send a message to: <Email Address Redacted> with the words UNSUB OANDP-L in the body of the
message. All postings related to US-politics must use a subject line
starting with US-Politics:
Any questions should be directed to Paul E. Prusakowski, CPO at
<Email Address Redacted>