AAOP Meeting

AAOP Meeting

For those of you who were unable to attend this years Academy meeting, it
turned out to be an excellent meeting.

 I certainly appreciate the efforts of Tom DiBello CO (President of the
Academy) and the whole Academy staff as well as the practitioners that
donated their time.
I hope in the future we will be able to record the symposiums and talks so
that others may benefit.

Below are just a few of the presentations I enjoyed.

Gordon BoskerCPO, Mark EdwardsCPO and Gary Berke CP gave excellent case
presentations that created an atmosphere of discussion and lively exchange.
It was a great format and their efforts were appreciated.

The symposiums on Trans Femoral socket design and Gel liners also proved to
be interesting and generated differences of opinion and discussion that I
find to be quite healthy. I think many people found it refreshing that these
symposiums and talks were not just passive presentations. Unfortunately time
ran out before even more could be elucidated.

In the Trans Fem seminar, we were just starting to explore the necessity of
designing the socket to accommodate the firing of muscles, and the issue of
whether flexible inner liners really do allow for the firing of muscle.

The seminar also stressed the tendency to make IC sockets that may be good
for walking but may not be designed properly for sitting. Something I have
certainly encountered

Issues in the gel liner seminar that were left unresolved was is there a
specific type of gel liner more appropriate for different skin conditions and
activity levels. It was made clear that gel liner do a great service to
reduce shear. It was also pointed out that pin suspension gel liners would be
mechanically more sound if the liner could be adhered to the socket. Of
course we can obtain this with an air tight shuttle lock and additional
sleeve suspension, if necessary, for a more positive suspension.

Gel liners contribution to shear reduction is significant, but it would have
been helpful to integrate concepts of componentry as well to share this job.
Of course time was too limited to even bring this up.

I would hope that in the future, if possible, there could be more time
allowed for discussion. It is at these times that we can benefit from others
experience and we can question what we know and what we think we know.

Steven Gard Phd gave a talk questioning some of the 6 determinants of gait
which have long been held as facts. This generated many private discussions.
He also gave some excellent information about the benefits of shock/torque
pylons

Karl Fillauer CPO gave a short talk on Hip disarticulation prostheses but I
wished he had had considerably more time to give us the benefit of his
extensive experience.

EdAyappa CPO , et al., now has a fully staffed gait lab and they are gearing
up to do studies on prosthetic feet, and prosthetic knees. His current talk
was about a study comparing the College Park Foot (multiaxial) with the SACH
foot and their relation to normal walking. I, for one, look forward to
hearing more from that team.

Paul Prusakowski CPO, his brother, and his team put together an amazing and
entertaining video animation that rivaled what comes out of Hollywood. It was
shown at the party for those of us on the list serve. Lots of fun.

I invite other attendees to share things they learned and appreciated at the
Academy meeting so that others might be informed. I think this would also be
a good forum for members and non members to let the Academy know what kinds
of discussions and presentations they would like to see at future meetings.

Mark Benveniste CP