2024-09-02 08:04:00
The great celebration of sport continues with the Paralympic Games in Paris and its now legendary venue, delighting spectators from around the world. Now, it’s athletes with disabilities who amaze us, amaze us, and delight us. If the Olympics feature incredible performances from heroic athletes, the Paralympics highlight outstanding athletes whose lives are sometimes shattered by accident or illness.
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One of the most iconic images is that of an amputee athlete with a prosthetic leg. Their participation is often the result of a long journey, from amputation to competition, including sometimes requiring subtle modifications to prosthetics. The fate of every high-level athlete competing in the Paralympics is different.
To name a few French athletes: tennis player Pauline Déroulède had her left leg amputated in a traffic accident; Laurent Chardard lost an arm and a leg after a shark attack legs; and Nélia Barbosa, whose legs were amputated due to a genetic disease.
Amputation, ancestral surgery
In medicine, amputation is the removal of a limb or part of a limb, whether surgically, accidentally, congenitally, or acquired. The oldest amputated human skeleton dates to 4,900 BC. Unfortunately, war is a major source of wounded soldiers, but war is often also an opportunity for great advances in medicine. Therefore, amputation surgery appeared under the scalpel of Ambroise Paré in the 16th century, and his revolutionary technology significantly improved the survival rate of injured soldiers in war zones.
huge gap
From an epidemiological perspective, the causes and number of amputations vary widely between countries, depending on the quality of their health systems. Thus, in France, 90% of amputations are due to diseases affecting the arteries (obliterative arteriopathy of the lower limbs) and 8% are due to trauma. In comparison, in Benin, 73% of amputations were caused by trauma and 18% by vascular disease.
Amputation is an emergency surgical procedure performed when surgical resources are limited and antibiotic treatment is lacking to control trauma-related infections; we obviously have in mind war situations where many patients need to be treated in the shortest possible time. Sometimes the choice between amputation (which would increase the chances of survival) and death is drastically reduced.
Also read Paralympics: Long jump artist Arnaud AssoumaniArteriopathy is by far the leading cause of amputation in France. They affect older adults and people with diabetes. They preferentially affect the limbs of the lower limbs, which explains why more than half of amputations involve the toes, 17% the foot, 15% the tibia, and 15% the femur. Amputation surgery involves cutting bone within the heart or joint, followed by myoplasty, which involves sewing the muscles around the bone to create a stump. Finally, an implant is sometimes placed in the bone to provide a hook for a future prosthesis.
The vast majority of athletes competing in the Paralympics have had their legs amputated or been born with deformities due to these unexpected circumstances. Whatever the reason, let us honor these servicemen and women who challenged the laws of nature and overcame obstacles to achieve the Holy Grail: Olympic champions.
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#amputation #athletes #life
