Empowered Patient Podcast

Tom Dugan is the President of Integrum, which is transforming the lives of amputees through a unique orthopedic implant that enables them to attach their prosthesis, their prosthetic leg, or any other type of prosthesis, directly to the musculoskeletal system. These bone-anchored prostheses dramatically improve the lives of amputees with the additional benefit of osseoperception, where they can feel the type of surface they are walking on. Tom explains, "What we do is an alternative to the socket. We have a surgical implant, and it's a fixture that is implanted into the canal of the patient's femur. And if you're familiar with dental implants, that's probably a good analogy because the dental implant was founded by a professor in Sweden called Per-Ingvar Brånemark. And Professor Brånemark, back in the '50s, was doing research in rabbits, and he implanted titanium fixtures into the rabbits that had some optical technology so you could see what happens with the bone in terms of healing." "What happened is Profe