Multi-articulating electric hands, toe-to-hand transfers and hand transplantation. Curious? Us, too. Which is why you should tune in to listen as Diane Atkins '74, a world-renowned occupational therapist, discusses the history, current advances and outcomes of various types of hand transplantations.
About Diane Atkins '74:
Diane is an internationally recognized occupational therapist specializing in upper limb amputee rehabilitation. She has worked with over 2000 children and adults with amputations and has lectured extensively throughout the US and abroad in areas relating to the evaluation, treatment, training and functional outcomes of individuals with unilateral and bilateral upper limb loss. Diane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She has been involved in several grants and research activities sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Veterans Administration and NASA.
In advance of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, she was asked by the United States Surgeon General to present several courses for the clinical rehabilitation teams at Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Centers regarding the management and care of soldiers who had sustained upper limb loss.
Diane is the co-editor and author of 2 text books relating to the comprehensive management of children and adults with upper extremity amputation and has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles. She is a Fellow in the International Society of Prosthetics and Orthotics and Honorary Member in the American Academy of Orthotics and Prosthetics.
Diane is the amputee /prosthetics consultant for Paradigm, the largest catastrophic case management company in the United States.
Diane has pursued a one-of-its-kind research project that is comparing the functional outcomes of individuals fit with state-of- the-art electric hands and those receiving unilateral and bilateral hand transplants from the United States and Europe.
Diane was recently appointed to the prestigious Advisory Panel of the National Limb Loss Preservations Registry (LLPR). The Registry, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD), aims to establish the number of people living in the United States with limb loss in order to provide insight into their challenges and needs. It is designed to collect data that will improve the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation efforts for this population.
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