Creating braces and artificial limbs has been Andrew Reimer's career for the past 12 years. Owner of Legacy Prosthetics and Orthotics Inc. in Innisfail since 2008, the orthotist and prosthetist is packing a bag and heading to Bolivia for a week in April to help fit people in the developing country with cheap, comfortable prosthetics.
“It's not high tech. I went down to Longview, Texas in 2003 to learn how to make the knee,” said Reimer who was able to make two in a morning. “So it's not tough.”
He also said the cost of the knee is about $20. The knee, based on the original Blatchford design created after World War II, is a really basic design compared to the ones available in North America that can run between $600 and $1,000 to start, and as much as $3,000 to $4,000.
In 2003, Dr. Roger Gonzalez, a professor of biomedical engineering at Le Tourneau University in Longview, Texas challenged his students to develop a prosthetic knee that could be made in third world countries with simple tools and locally obtainable materials. The result, a first-generation prosthetic device for above-the-knee amputees. Since then, Limbs International Inc., an independent, non-profit organization with plans to improve the lives of tens of thousands of the poorest amputees around the world, formed.
And Reimer got involved.
After learning how to make the knee in 2005 he went to Africa with The Leprosy Mission, and to help build and fit prosthetics on people suffering from leprosy. He said most people were transtibial, meaning they needed a prosthesis below the knee.
“I ‘MacGyvered' a lot to get through it,” said Reimer explaining the jig, a part needed to create the knee wasn't shipped to Nigeria as planned and he had to get creative when building the part. “I'm very sure they'll make me make knees,” he said of some of his duties for his upcoming trip in Bolivia.
He said his trip to South America is to “feel out” the organization and see if it's the right fit or not.
“They're looking for a new prosethetist, new blood. It's a courtship trip for a lack of a better word.”
He said if he does join on, he'll still keep his shop in town but will likely spend three to four weeks a year travelling to the different locations where Limbs operates.
Currently, there's six training centres around the world where prosthetists in local clinics and other organizations create the knee and 15 countries are receiving help from those trained.
“They don't have a reasonable, marketable knee,” said Reimer of people in developing nations and why he's gotten involved.
“Or they have a peg-leg style where there's not active knee. People can walk with a stiff knee but walking up stairs or a hill can be difficult if they can't bend their knee.”
He said while he was in Africa, he used almost exclusively a foot that comes from Canada.
“I fit nearly 160 of them and didn't have any break down. They're not pretty, but they work well.” He said it's important to have a durable product for rugged terrain. He said Gonzalez has shown interest in marketing the foot, which is relatively inexpensive to make. Combined with the knee, he said the cost is under $100.
Limbs International plans to produce 3,000 knees this year with a goal of 10,000 by 2014.
