CAD CAM Responses #4

CAD CAM Responses #4

Dear Mark,



I used a seattle shapemaker system for approx five years and eventually


reverted back to manual production. The reasons are as follows;


-still had to take a cast


-digitising and sending to CF was quicker than modifying, just, but the fit


was poorer and required more adjustment at fitting time, unless I used a


check socket which added an extra step as I don't normally need one, so it


didn't actually save me time,


-the end fitting was less than optimum, but satisfactory for the majority of


users who are elderly and not very mobile,


-very difficult to obtain a satisfactory result with skinny bony stumps,


fleshy green interim stumps = good fit,


- difficult to judge(guess!) the length of socket,


-difficult to judge volume,


 -back up support was poor as I am in Australia and it took forever to get


the carver fixed,


-extra cost of blanks and/or blank production which is a real pain!!!!!


 but you in the USA may be able to charge for that but here in Australia the


majority of our patients are publicly funded so we have fixed cost per limb


and don't get any extra money for it.)



In summary I loved using it as it was great fun and ground breaking stuff


but it fell by the wayside as it required me to use extra steps that I


didn't use before, taking longer production time for a poorer end result and


costing me more to produce a limb when I still only got the same


reimbursement.



In short, I felt my quality of work fell while production costs and time


increased.



I think that to be widely embraced CADCAM needs to be able to capture shape


without a cast, be more accurate and reliable and produce a socket without


having to produce a positive model, ie patient sticks stump into one end of


machine and socket pops out the other.



But then I think that maybe OSSUR is on the right track (except that they


charge waaay to much for the braided carbon fibre material!! and that they


tend to think that everyone needs a SSS! ) in that you produce the socket


right onto the limb and eliminate all the inbetween production time etc, and


you don't need as many machines or stock, food for thought hey?



Anyway thats my 2c worth except that your reading this in the US and my 2c


is worth only 1c!!



Feel free to post this onto the list if you think it will create some


discussion.



Regards Andrew Cox


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