Another exciting step has been made in the advancement of independent living! The James Dyson Foundation, an organisation which encourages and supports young designers, has created the Amparo Socket – a prosthetic socket which fits below the knee and is designed specifically with developing countries in mind. What makes this product unique is its ability to reduce the time needed in order to fit an amputee from 3 months to 2 hours.

Roughly 80% of the developing world lacks adequate care services to receive prosthetic limbs, this statistic affects approximately 29,000,000 people who have lost limbs worldwide. This leaves them either reliant on crutches or simply unable to walk. The Foundation team travelled to South Africa to meet people who have lost limbs, technicians & clinics in order to understand and solve this problem.

During this trip, the team discovered that the complications lying behind prosthetic limbs often lay with the fact that each person has unique residual limb geometry and one size does not fit all. As a result, the Amparo team decided to redesign a prosthetic socket that would increase the efficiency of the fitting process.

Their solution was to create the Amparo socket, an innovative and unique concept consisting of a remouldable thermoplastic material encased in a thick PU coated fabric. After the appropriate size is selected for the socket, which functions similarly to a mouth guard, it is boiled then directly fitted over the residual limb once cooled.

The design for the Amparo Socket is unique as it can be fitted in less than 2 hours (traditional sockets can take 3-6 months), it requires no specialised tooling, and it can be remoulded to fit any changes which may occur with the residual limb (limb volume typically changes approximately 20% each day - particularly in hot climates – which means people are often unable to wear the prosthesis because their socket has become too tight). Whilst we do not have any specific information about cost, all the information available about the Amparo Socket points to a low-cost solution.

The final steps are to begin clinical trials. This involves the rigorous testing of the design, with the ultimate goal of developing a prosthetic socket which provides people in developing countries who have lost limbs with the same quality of care that their counterparts in developed nations experience. These tests will take six months, following this, the team plan to start working with local clinics and technicians in order to distribute their device amongst areas of Brazil, South Africa, and Cambodia.

The Amparo Socket team has also won several awards: ASME Ishow Award, EXIST Grant Recipient, Venturewell Grant Recipient, RPI Change the World Recipient, Lion Launch Pad Award Recipient, and the Senior Service Coaching Competition.

The Amparo Socket follows a growing movement which we have seen in recent years, to bring innovative and cost-effective solutions to developing nations around the globe. Be it low cost all terrain wheelchairs, 3D printed limbs, or now the Amparo socket, it is evident that inclusion doesn’t stop with geopolitical borders and more than ever it is defined not only by its practicality but also by its cost.

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