Dental Implant Technology Revolutionizing Attachment of Prosthesis for Amputees with Tom Dugan Integrum

Tom Dugan is the President of Integrum, which is transforming the lives of amputees through a unique orthopedic implant that enables them to attach their prosthesis, their prosthetic leg, or any other type of prosthesis, directly to the musculoskeletal system. These bone-anchored prostheses dramatically improve the lives of amputees with the additional benefit of osseoperception, where they can feel the type of surface they are walking on. Tom explains, "What we do is an alternative to the socket. We have a surgical implant, and it's a fixture that is implanted into the canal of the patient's femur. And if you're familiar with dental implants, that's probably a good analogy because the dental implant was founded by a professor in Sweden called Per-Ingvar Brånemark. And Professor Brånemark, back in the '50s, was doing research in rabbits, and he implanted titanium fixtures into the rabbits that had some optical technology so you could see what happens with the bone in terms of healing." "What happened is Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, along with some other people including his son, Rickard, who's our CEO -- Rickard's a surgeon and an engineer and a Ph.D.-- took that core technology and adapted it to orthopedic use so they could deal with some of these issues the patients were having with their socket prosthesis. So it's an alternative to using a socket." "With socket prosthesis, the patient is essentially supporting themselves with their soft tissue and muscle, the stump of their leg. With our system, there's now a direct connection between the prosthesis, the prosthetic leg, and the patient's musculoskeletal system. And because of that, the patient will get additional benefits such as things like osseoperception, where they can actually feel the type of surface that they're walking on, whether it'd be grass or carpet, or tile. They can feel where their leg is in space, which is something you really don't get when you're wearing a socket prosthesis." #Integrum #Amputee #AmputeeLife #BoneAnchoredProstheses #OPRAImplantSystem #OrthopedicSurgery #Osseointegration #Prosthetics #Orthopedics #OrthoTrauma #ImplantTechnology #MedTech Integrum.se Download the transcript here