{"id":8546,"date":"2023-03-10T12:24:29","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T12:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2031\/?p=8546"},"modified":"2023-03-10T12:24:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T12:24:29","slug":"implications-and-challenges-in-animal-and-wildlife-prosthetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2031\/2023\/03\/10\/implications-and-challenges-in-animal-and-wildlife-prosthetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Implications and Challenges in Animal and Wildlife Prosthetics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From internal procedures like knee or hip joint replacements, to external ones like replacement limbs, prosthetics allow hundreds of thousands<\/a> of people each year increased quality of life and mobility. As someone with a background in animal ecology, I became interested in how prosthetics for animals might be created; they have very different morphology and requirements to humans, with stronger forces being exerted on them, and the animal\u2019s natural behaviour needs to be considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example of prosthetics being used for non-human patients is, of course, Prof. Noel Fitzpatrick<\/a>, who treats pets around the UK, for example Oscar<\/a>, a cat who lost his hind limbs, and had them replaced with Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthetics<\/a> (ITAP), where holes are drilled into the residual limb\u2019s bone and the implants are then attached, allowing the skin to bond to the prosthetic, creating \u2018pegs\u2019 onto which the limb itself can then be attached following a recovery period. Similar methods for bone-anchored limb prosthetics are being considered for humans, though still in its early stages<\/a>. Even a recent study<\/a> performed on 16 cats and 4 pigs finds issues with infection at the stoma, and a high failure rate of integration. Regardless, it is true that prosthetic techniques being developed in the field of veterinary science can have implications for human medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 (Supervet, 2009) – Oscar the cat with his Osseointegrated hind limbs. Note the interaction between the patient’s skin and the limb. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But what I was most interested in was wild animals, whose requirements would be a lot different to pets\u2019. That\u2019s how I ran into Winter<\/a>, a bottlenose dolphin whose tail was lost in a crab trap in 2005. Over a year and a half later, with a lot of work from a dedicated team, a prosthetic tail was completed and fitted onto Winter. Unlike an arm or a leg, a tail can\u2019t simply stay solid as the animal moves, but must move along with it, hold its position under water and under the force of a large animal using it to propel its movement, not cause further injuries to Winter, and, of course, perform its function as a tail. The resulting material created from this research, WintersGel<\/a>, can now be used for human patients, especially athletes as it is softer and distributes weight more evenly than other liners, reducing pain and pressure exerted by the limb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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