Abstract
The authors studied Activities of Daily Living (A. D. L.) of 33 upper extremity amputees (25 unilateral, 8 bilateral) by interview in order to know, firstly, the dimension of their disability, secondly, the usefulness of the prosthesis.
For each of 126 activities (personal hygiene, eating, dressing, communication, use of tools), the interviewer scored specially designed questionnaire, from which following results were obtained.
1. Upper extremity amputees are essentially independent in A.D.L. (97% of test activities). However, “hidden disabilities”, such as slowness of performance (11% of independent activities), change of motion patterns (41%), use of self help devices (3%) and avoidance of performance (1% of necessary activities) were noted.
2. Dressing activities, especially knotting, use of cuff buttons, are the most difficult among 5 categories of A. D. L.
3. Unilateral amputees use active prosthesis rarely (12% of cases) and their A. D. L. are accomplished by residual function (remaining hand, mouth, foot, etc.). 40% of unilateral amputees use routinely some type of prosthesis.
4. Bilateral amputees tend to use exclusively either active prosthesis or their prehensile stumps (Krukenberg stump or cleft partial hand). Bilateral amputees except for one bilateral above-elbow amputee live within sufficient level of independence, but they avoid to perform more activities than unilateral ones.
