It’s Never Too Late to Adjust: Retrofitting an Existing Socket

Building and fitting a prosthetic device is always a challenge. The patient is cast, a check socket or two is fitted, and a definitive device is delivered. Hopefully this all occurs in a one- to two-week period. The patient is told that this device should last them three to five years. The clinical struggle is that the initial interval in which the patient has been seen and fitted is a very short blip on the life cycle of that device. The patient’s limb will often change immediately after they have been fitted—in size, shape, and volume. So what can be done about this? The answer has always been not much, since the socket is already made, so the clinician reluctantly begins the process of adding pads and more socks to make the fit more comfortable.

What if the clinician could turn an existing device into an adjustable socket after the fact? Retrofitting a socket with adjustability could enable the patient to wear the device for months, or even years, longer. It may not be a permanent solution, but it would allow the patient to continue to wear the device while documentation is collected, paperwork is submitted, or the expected life cycle of the device is fulfilled.