Read about the latest news and technological innovations from Boston Orthotics & Prosthetics, including new products, new treatment options, clinician profiles, and how patients and clinicians are overcoming challenges with the help of Boston O&P's products.
Six-year-old Rosie Barrett is always on the go, and as is fairly common with active kids, all that action results in the occasional injury. For Rosie, that injury was a broken humerus bone, the result of jumping and falling at a friend’s birthday party.
Because of where the fracture was, Rosie’s doctor didn’t want to do a traditional cast, and because she was so young and so active, he was concerned that putting it in a sling wouldn’t be enough. Rosie would need a custom orthosis.
Tony Gutierrez is an American Board for Certification (ABC) certified technician prosthetics orthotics (CTPO) and Boston O&P’s Production Manager working in the Avon, MA production facility. In this Q&A, Tony shares how he got into the field, what he loves about his job, and how working in a clinic early on guides his thought process on manufacturing the products he makes to help patients.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from Nicholas Lipiec and the story of the first nine months of his life.
Nick, as his mom Katie Fournier calls him, was born with hemifacial microsomia (HFM), a rare condition in which half of one side of the face is underdeveloped and does not grow normally.
Kate is by all accounts ahead of the learning curve. “She's an extremely smart little kid,” says her Dad, Patrick Brown. “She's known all the letters of the alphabet since she was two and a half.”
Like many couples, Kerry Adams and her husband, Derek, eagerly began preparing for the arrival of their first child. What they didn’t prepare for was the unexpected news that their son had myelomeningocele, one of the most severe forms of spina bifida, in which the spinal cord fails to close during development.
The American Board for Certification (ABC) defines a certified orthotist as an allied-healthcare professional that is specifically educated and trained to provide comprehensive orthotic patient care. This includes the patient evaluation, formulation and documentation of the treatment plan, and designing and fabricating the most appropriate orthosis to obtain the treatment plan goals. The orthotist is also responsible for the fitting, modification, maintenance and repair of the orthoses.
Matt Westlake joined Boston Orthotics & Prosthetics in 2018 as the Clinical Director of the Manhattan and River Edge, NJ clinics. In this Q&A, Matt shares how an injury changed the course of his life, how he learned about orthotics, and why he chose to specialize in rare orthopedic and neurological pathologies in children.
