Bionic prostheses for the military: where to get help

“Learning to use a new limb is sometimes no less difficult a challenge than accepting the loss of one’s own.”. This is exactly what the doctors of the Unbroken center in Lviv say, where from the spring of 2022 they started prosthetics for servicemen who lose limbs in the war.

The war that our country is experiencing is technological and modern not only on the battlefield, where drones, the latest radars and super-accurate missiles have now appeared. It is state-of-the-art and in the rear, because now not only doctors are fighting for the lives of our defenders, but also medical equipment that knows how much fluid needs to be removed from the lungs, how long the anesthesia will last, and where exactly the vessel that the doctor needs is located.

Unlike during the Second World War, when in the case of losing a limb, the military could count on safe amputation at most, today doctors, charitable foundations, the public and the state are working to provide defenders with modern solutions that will allow them to do more than just perform all those functions , which they performed with their own hand, but in some people the prosthesis will even surpass the functionality of the normal hand. Although it should be accepted as a fact that both psychologically and from the point of view of sensations, no prosthesis can replace a real hand.

We are talking about bionic prostheses, which are the most technological in this case. They are very expensive, because one of them costs from 20 to 50 thousand euros, but it is with them that a person can live a full life and do ordinary household chores: tie shoelaces, type text on a laptop, cook, fix hair and hold the hand of a loved one .

The collection for such prostheses for defenders who have lost limbs continues on dobro.ua. We implement it with the National Rehabilitation Center Unbroken on the basis of the First Medical Association of Lviv. It was the doctors and staff of the hospital, who strive to provide high-quality and modern medical care to their patients, that became the impetus to unite millions of benefactors around the goal.

The demand for them among the military is simply enormous, the bill goes to thousands of those who really need it, but not everyone can get it. A warring country cannot provide everyone with prostheses, so ordinary Ukrainians come to the rescue, donating for the purchase of prostheses.

In addition to the price, there are also certain features: the process from preparation to installation, which can be a series of operations to prepare the limb and its nerve endings for subsequent prosthetics. The process lasts from several months to more than half a year.

During this time, the soldier has to accept many challenges, learn new skills and restore old ones, in order to fully master the “new limb”. This is where self-motivation, persistence and professional help of a mental health specialist come in handy, helping the patient and his environment to accept changes and move on.

It is often difficult for a grown man or woman who has gone to defend their country to even imagine that, due to the loss of a limb, they will spend weeks or months relearning to write their name on a piece of paper with a new hand. In the center of Unbroken, several psychologists work with our heroes, who provide constant support to those who return to civilian life after the battlefield, injuries and hospitals.

However, the word “unbreakable” is not just used alongside the word “Ukrainians”. We have several cases when servicemen went through a rather difficult path of obtaining a prosthesis and mastering its functionality and decided to return to the fight. They are real heroes, they were the ones who were able to teach the prosthesis not only to write with a pen, but also to hold a machine gun or the steering wheel of a pickup truck. One of such heroes is Dmytro. After a few months of service, he lost a limb, and he returned to the war already with a bionic prosthesis.

Bionic prosthesis

In order for each of them to be able to fully reintegrate into society, there are projects of charitable funds that are designed to provide not only physical, but also psychological help. Returning from war, our military will feel that we have succeeded in creating a system that can understand them and feel their needs.

The times are ahead when we will meet people with prostheses almost every day on the street, in cafes and supermarkets. Let’s remember that they themselves may be going through the process of accepting their new limb and adapting to civilian life, so instead of looking at the prosthesis while standing at the supermarket checkout, it’s better to say a few words of support or just support a project now that saves those who protects us

Every Ukrainian soldier who lost a limb during hostilities can contact the hotline of the rehabilitation center Unbroken – 0 800 333 003

There, defenders or their relatives will be provided with all the information about receiving assistance and the necessary documents.

Bohdan BerdnykPR manager of the dobro.ua platformespecially for UP. Life

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