Investigation of the Quality of Life of Persons with a Transfemoral Amputation Who Use a C-Leg® Prosthetic Device

Abstract

Recently, microprocessor-controlled knees, such as the C-Leg® (Ottobock, Duderstadt, Germany, and Minneapolis, MN, USA), have improved ambulatory function in persons with transfemoral amputation. The purposes of this study were to assess the quality of life (QoL) of users of the C-Leg and to determine the factors that contributed to it. Packets including the SF-36 QoL assessment, the Prosthetic Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ), and a demographic questionnaire were mailed to 100 individuals who were using the C-Leg; 33 surveys with complete and useable data were returned. On the SF-36v2, 61% of the respondents were below the general population norm in the physical component summary (PCS), whereas 88% were at or above the general population norm for the mental component summary (MCS). The average rating on the PEQ Well-Being (WB) scale was 76.1%. No significant differences were identified when looking at either the PEQ WB score or the PCS on the SF-36v2 when age and sex were the grouping variables. Men scored higher on the MCS of the SF-36v2. Those living in rural areas had significantly higher scores (p = 0.38) than did those living in urban areas on the PEQ WB scale, but there was no significant difference on either of the SF-36v2 component summaries. Low frustration with the prosthesis and high ambulation scores on the PEQ predicted 62.5% of the WB scores. This study suggests that clinical interventions should be aimed at obtaining a high level of ambulatory mobility for optimal QoL outcomes for the person with lower limb amputations using the C-Leg.