Last week I had a call for a shrinker for a trans-tibial amputee who weighed a little over 400 lbs. The problem is the large circumference difference between the knee and the thigh and the inability to keep the top of the shrinker from rolling down. As I stressed over this, I thought about using an AK shrinker and uitilizing the belt to hold it up, but the AK shrinker is a straight tube and would not handle the large taper from the thigh to the distal end.
In response to this issue, we’ve made a lower extremity dressing retention and compression garment that is modeled after our AK shrinker that is tapered to go down over the shin and onto the forefoot. The lower extremity dressing retention and compression garment works great. The top is large enough to contain the entire thigh, the belt is long enough to go around the waist, and the taper is just right to provide compression on the residual limb. We chose to stitch the distal end to give a custom look, but patients can still add a bone ring distally to close. Try it out – it just may help solve the problem!
– Doyle Collier,
Knit-Rite Technical Director, CP
Knit Rite 