Silicone limbs impress Army Chief

Pune From a partial hand, cosmetic finger and thumb to a carbon reinforced foot, the Artificial Limb Centre (ALC) of the Indian Armed Forces now uses silicone solutions to suit the injured soldier’s needs. The implants have been tailor-made to suit the needs of Army and civilian personnel with deformities. On Wednesday, it was the turn of Indian Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor to spend time with convalescing patients at ALC.

“They are doing a wonderful job here,” Gen Kapoor said as he wrote about his experience in the visitors’ book. Gen Kapoor also visited the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC). Silicones are largely inert, man-made solutions with a wide variety of forms and uses. They are polymers that include silicon together with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and sometimes other elements. The silicone restoration lab, added to the ALC in October 2008, has till date seen the technicians and prosthetists devise 42 cosmetic fingers, 11 cosmetic hands and 10 cosmetic feet.

Initially set up at a cost of Rs 50 lakh, the laboratory apart from importing the silicone material, the Silicone Restoration Lab provides life-like cosmetic replacement for various limb losses, said Brig M K Mukherjee, Commandant of the Artificial Limb Centre (ALC).

Original research is in hand to develop customised pressure-relieving silicone insoles that will help reduce the need for amputations such as in diabetics. Collaboration is also on with leading organisations to explore the vast field of rehabilitation engineering, he said.

Col A K Saxena, commanding officer the ALC workshop, said silicone material is imported from the UK. A partial hand costs Rs 16,965, while a cosmetic finger costs Rs 1,615, a thumb Rs 2,065 and a foot Rs 21,680. These are sold to patients but the cost is half of that in a private hospital, said Col Saxena.

Although the centre was raised with the primary objective of providing artificial limbs to the vast casualties of the two World Wars, the facilities were extended to the dependents of Armed Forces personnel and civilians in 1951. The patients, coming from all over India and its neighbouring countries, has grown to over 50,000, many of them going back to the World War II era while many are veterans of the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars.