Disclosures: Tawnee L. Sparling, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To test the hypothesis that an intensive outpatient-based rehabilitation program will improve functional outcomes in patients with limb loss.

Design: A case series using a pretest-posttest approach to look at several functional measures before and after completion of the rehabilitation program. Setting : An outpatient therapy clinic at an urban academic rehabilitation hospital. Participants : 14 patients with above knee (n=5) or below knee (n=9) and unilateral (n=8) or bilateral (n=6) amputations who presented to the limb loss clinic and were referred to outpatient rehabilitation.

Interventions: Participants were enrolled in BOOST Camp, an intensive 5-day per week outpatient rehabilitation program involving multidisciplinary therapies (physical, occupational, aquatic, music) as well as nutritional services, adaptive sports and combined physician and prosthetic clinic visits.

Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measures were the differences in the sit-to-stand (STS), timed up and go (TUG) and two-minute walk test performances before and after completion of the BOOST program. Secondary outcome measures were the satisfaction and the percent likely to recommend scores obtained from survey data.

Results: There was statistically significant improvement in all functional tests after completion of the BOOST program as follows: 6.35±11.81s (p=0.033) for STS, 13.83±11.72s (p < 0.001) for TUG and 72.08±81.46ft (p=0.005) for the two-minute walk test. The mean satisfaction score of participants was 88.8%. Conclusions: The results confirm that an intense, week-long, multidisciplinary outpatient rehabilitation program improves functionally relevant tests in patients with limb loss. BOOST Camp is a novel program that can enhance patients’ effective use of their prostheses, specifically with regards to donning and doffing, ply management, functional transfers and gait optimization. Additionally, patients are better prepared for a transition to “typical” outpatient physical therapy for prosthetic training and community-based activities. BOOST Camp can be a good alternative for patients who prefer not to or do not qualify for inpatient prosthetic training.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/boost-camp-a-novel-outpatient-rehabilitation-program-for-patients-with-limb-loss/