There’s not really a not dense way to ask this so apologies for the bluntness. When someone has a limb amputated, it’s a long, arduous surgery. But when people are in accidents and lose a limb and live, I’m assuming they have some kind of surgery to fix the damaged tissue? Is the intentional amputation safer? Quicker? More cost effective?
Thanks in advance!
In: Biology
The amputation surgery has to think about the future – what remains (after healing) should lend itself well to prosthetics. So, for example, the surgeon and patient would really want the amputation to be AFTER a joint rather than before, so that the person can use that point with the prosthetic and have more mobility.
So in your typical amputation, it would be a one shot deal where they slowly work on the amputation to prepare it for a future prosthetic.
I personally have seen amputations with things like gangrene, where the surgery can’t wait and the gangrene is killing a person. In this case, the surgeon just goes nuts and cuts off the gangrenous limb as fast as possible, they don’t care about the details or the prosthetic. Once it’s healed up, they go back and revise it for prosthetic use with a second surgery.
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