Disclosures: Seung Hak Lee, MD, PhD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Case Description: The first patient was a 25-year-old female who had a second, third, and fourth finger amputation due to blender injury in the workplace. Her fourth finger was replanted but second and third finger was amputated at proximal interphalangeal level. The second patient was a 25-year-old male who had left second finger PIP disarticulation during plumbing work.

Setting: Finger amputations are the most common work-related amputation in Korea. Even though amputated fingers can be functional when more than half of the proximal phalanx is preserved, it has negative impacts of the patient’s hand function, quality of life, and self-esteem. Recently, 3D-printed prostheses have been gaining attention in various levels of upper limb amputation due to its low cost, onsite fabrication, and easy customization. In this study, we report two cases of work-related finger amputation patients who received body-powered, 3D-printed finger prostheses and underwent sufficient prosthetic training.

Patient: Two finger amputation patients Assessment/

Results: Both patients were satisfied with 3D-printed finger prostheses and improved in functional evaluation. The first patient showed no definite improvement in hand function, however, COPM performance of cooking showed additional gain after prosthesis training. The second patient showed improved JHFT and COPM performance of typing after two months prosthesis training.

Discussion: 3D-printed finger prosthesis could improve the patient’s hand function and task performance. However, conventional physical and occupational therapies (e.g. range of motion exercise) should be accompanied for better prosthetic use and the demonstration of clinical efficacy through appropriate functional evaluation is required.

Conclusion: Body-powered, 3D-printed finger prosthesis is feasible and can be applied quickly and easily for finger amputation patients

Level of Evidence: Level I

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/applying-body-powered-3d-printed-prostheses-in-finger-amputation-patients/