A retrospective study of 91 amputees, who were received amputation operation from January 1989 to June 1994 in Kang-Nam St. Mary's Hospital, was conducted to determine the age & sex, sites, cases, duration from amputation to prosthesis fitting
and
prosthesis training time, so the following results were obtained.
The age group of amputees were evenly distributed between 20 and 70 years, and 81.3% of amputees were male. The most common cause of amputation was vascular disease(67.0%), especially Buerger's disease(41%). It's almost lower limb amputation and
the
common site of amputation were above-knee(41.8%) and below-knee(50.6%). Mean duration from amputation operation to prosthesis fitting was 51.8 days and that from prosthesis fitting to discharge was 26.7 days for above-knee and 20 days for
below-knee
amputation.
Up to now, most of studies reported that trauma was the main cause of amputation in Korea. However, through our study of recent 5 years, we guess peripheral vascular disease will appear to be a leading cause of amputation, and also its prevention
and
early rehabilitation will be very significant medico-social problem in Korea.
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