Hey everybody this is Christina the amputee OT
I'm here with my friend roger and in this video we're going to talk about
some of the challenges
of using stairs as an above knee amputee
can you explain to me some of the difficulties
using stairs as an above knee amputee?
going step-by-step if you've get people behind it can be a little awkward because
sometimes they're going step-over-step not step-by-step
kinda feel like you're always being rushed when you're going up stairs or
downstairs because you can never go step-over-step unless you have
a good microprocessor knee that can actually have all the gyroscopes and
sensors that can
sense what you're doing gonna hold you in certain spots as you power yourself up and down.
why do you need to go step-by-step as opposted to
step-over-step?
With this [knee] it doesn't have the
stance control like a microprocessor [knee] does so
When you're on a microprocessor [knee] and you go into your gait
and it senses you putting your wieght down on a broken knee
it will hold you there and you can power yourself up even higher
and it won't let you fall backward - this one doesn't have any of those controls
So when I do fall backwards I keep going backwards.
If I try to do it the way I want to...
...and I lead off here..
...and I try to get to here
and that knee is not bent
It's going to pole-vault me all the way like four steps down
by if I try to bend it then I have to actually
fire that hamstring until the next step so it's
pretty much just kinda like i'm hopping anyway. I gotta make sure that the knee
is in bend mode and I just kinda go to the next.
since it's not the microprocessor knee it doesn't have
a lot of stance on it, it doesn't
give you that
that back hamstring motion
you constantly got tension there.
The break the knee - you're going down.
Certain knees can
do step-over-step stairs and other knees can't do step-over-step stairs?
yes
What happens if you try to do step-over-step
with stairs the knee that you have right now?
I have to use a lot of power
with my hamstrings and my quads.
and I have to maintain that power all through the step.
How long did it take you to learn how to go up and down stairs on your prosthesis?
Pretty quick. It's one of the things they were trying to teach us how to do in physical therapy
when I first got the leg. Step-By-Step because that's the safest way they know how to teach you.
what are some of the tips that they gave for doing stairs
taker take your time make sure you've got a
good balance
and if you don't feel comfortable or you lose your breath
and you can't handle it, just stay there and wait for a minute.
When you get really courageous you can always...
...just take two steps at a time.
Christina: almost seems easier that way.
if you were talking to you a new amputee who is getting ready to do
stairs and hadn't really seen anybody
do stairs except for on the internet, what kind of advice would you give them?
pretty much the same thing that my physical therapist told me:
take your time, try not to power through anything that you can't power through
use here good leg as much as you can. So you always want to power up through your good one
Keep your weight on the bad one.
the okay everybody that's all for now I hope you enjoyed this video
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see you next time, bye!