April is an excellent time to raise awareness about the limb losscommunity and empower people affected by limb loss to achieve their full potential. Each day, more than 500 Americans lose a limb.
Limb Loss is the loss of all or part of an arm or leg due to trauma, infection, diabetes, heart disease, cancer or other diseases. There are an estimated 1.9 million people living with limb loss in the United States.
Annually, the immediate health care costs of limb amputations - not including costs for prosthetic devices (artificial limbs) or rehabilitation costs total more than $8.3 billion
Curves tend to put the brakes on human runners. They're even harder for amputees using an artificial limb. Research now shows that even which leg the prosthesis is on can affect how fast someone can take a curve.
Two important forces are in play when a sprinter rounds a bend. First, working against gravity slows a runner. But centripetal force alsois at work. It pulls something on a circular path toward the center of the curve. And it, too, will slow a runner down.
Studies have suggested that when an experienced sprinter goes around a turn, the inside leg creates less force than the outside one. So researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder wanted to see how this might affect runners with artificial limbs. To find out, a team from its Applied Biomechanics Lab filmed such U.S. and German runners.
The Paralympic Games is an international sporting competition for athletes with physical disabilities. Like the Olympics, this group hosts summer and winter games every four years.
For the 85 percent of amputees who suffer from phantom limb pain, finding relief may seem hopeless. But a new study from Emory University has found a technique that significantly reduces the painful sensations amputees feel in their removed limbs.
"It was amazing, the very next day, all that aching and pain were gone," study participant Charles "Thom" Presley, 59, told FoxNews.com."I still had the sensation that my foot was there- I could still wiggle my toes that weren't there- but I have had no trouble since with the pain at all. It's just brilliant, absolutely brilliant."
