Paradigm is once again proud to recognize and support Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month in April. The Amputee Coalition of America has held this observance since 2010 to honor the limb loss and limb difference community and to educate the public around the need for equitable medical access, care, and coverage. The 2022 campaign theme—Your Ordinary Is Extraordinary—highlights the obstacles this population must regularly overcome to adapt to daily living.

As part of our mission to achieve life-changing outcomes for seriously injured workers, Paradigm has deep experience assisting limb loss survivors on their recovery journey. These cases require the highest levels of care management, including relationships with best-in-class providers, and clinical partnerships with leading research organizations.

In particular, the limb loss treatment field has a growing need for robust and comprehensive data on care and outcomes, including prosthetic effectiveness. Through our relationship with the Limb Loss and Preservation Registry (LLPR), Paradigm is dedicated to supporting the implementation and sustainability of the much-needed limb loss associated continuity of care data that can guide the evidence-based practices in this area.

Data-driven amputee care builds an extraordinary future for patients
The LLPR is managed by the Mayo Clinic, and was initially funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. The mission of this worthy registry project is to create a centralized comprehensive data warehouse designed to collect and compile relevant limb loss data that can lead to improvements in quality of care and patient outcomes for limb loss patients. Its core values are innovation, respect, integrity, and transparency—and the LLPR registry will include all causes of amputation or limb loss, including traumatic injuries as well as diabetes and vascular diseases.

LLPR’s comprehensive repository of clinical data, surgical procedures, prosthetic devices, therapy interventions, functional outcomes, and patient quality-of-life concerns will become an indispensable resource for providers, care managers, researchers, and patients.

With our decades of experience in catastrophic and severe care management, Paradigm is an important clinical partner as well as a robust source of expertise for this initiative, joining a roster of key collaborators, including academic researchers, clinicians, hospitals, post-acute care facilities, prosthetists, and prosthetic manufacturers. In fact, Paradigm’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Michael Choo, MD, is a founding member of LLPR’s external stakeholder advisory board, which is a panel that provides support and guidance to LLPR’s principal investigator, Kenton Kaufman, PhD, and his Mayo Clinic team to successfully implement and sustain the registry on a long-term basis.

April 2022 is an exciting time for our clinical partnership with Mayo Clinic, since our endeavor involving LLPR over the past few years has progressed enough to begin enrolling providers and other clinical stakeholders in the new LLPR website. This official LLPR website is set to begin sharing data from its inaugural number of limb loss- and preservation-related cases, while continuously and exponentially adding more data points into the registry from across the nation. This bolsters one of the key pillars of Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month by increasing access to—and helping disseminate—key treatment and outcomes data. By centralizing these insights and delivering observational research in real time, patients can access much-needed information regarding limb loss and amputation care. This can lead to more consistent care that is designed to achieve the most functional outcomes that help to maximize the quality of life for people affected by limb loss.

Help limb loss survivors thrive
Join Paradigm as we continue to change lives for people living with limb loss and highlight their extraordinary efforts. Throughout April, the Amputee Coalition of America is encouraging everyone to share stories that help raise awareness around limb loss and limb difference by using the #WeTHRIVE and #LLAM hashtags. You can also support Paradigm by liking and sharing our posts focusing on this critical topic.

Learn more about the collaborations Paradigm fosters with leaders across the entire range of our clinical subspecialties.