Mining Literature to Identify Factors Influencing Prosthetic Prescription and Rehabilitation of Persons With Lower-Limb Amputations

Abstract

IntroductionProper prosthetic prescription directly impacts rehabilitation and the quality of life of an individual with amputation, yet complications during the prescription process remain a challenge for prosthetists as a variety of patient-specific and prosthetic-specific factors need to be considered simultaneously during prescription. This research aims to identify the factors that affect decision making during prosthetic prescription and rehabilitation processes of individuals with lower-limb amputation via evidence-based approaches.Materials and MethodsAbstracts of 140 articles were analyzed using topic modeling—a natural language processing algorithm.ResultsMining abstracts of relevant literature revealed seven factors that influence prosthetic prescription and six factors that affect rehabilitation of individuals with amputation.ConclusionThe findings of this study focus on improving the rehabilitation process of individuals with lower-limb amputation, enhancing the patient-provider relationship, and improving the overall quality of life via evidence-based methods.Clinical RelevanceUnderstanding the factors that affect prosthetic prescription and patient rehabilitation from the past literature is critical to the establishment of formal and standard prescription strategies that can eventually improve the quality of life of persons with lower-limb amputation.