A set of guidelines designed to help prosthetists and clinicians make appropriate treatment choices for their patients is available to download through the RSLSteeper website.

The guidelines are built around evidence-based medicine and clinical opinion in order to provide practitioners with consistent information, according to a press release. The guidelines will help reduce variations in prescription, produce recommendations that can be easily audited, support clinicians in decision-making processes and assist them in thoroughly investigating treatment options.

Reviewed and endorsed by the British Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Amputee Rehabilitation, each guideline has a pooled consensus of professional opinion, as well as recommendations that are supported by medical evidence, professional recommendation or both on three key areas: prescription of socket type, casting method and prescription of generic hardware.

“We’ve been working on this document since 2005 and it has been available to buy for some time. However, the clinics, charities ad prosthetists that were already using the information felt it should be made available to a much wider audience, so we decided to put it in the downloads section of the RSLSteeper website, where it can be downloaded free of charge,” Vicky Jarvis, prosthetic services manager at RSLSteeper, stated in the release. “It gives them the opportunity to properly evaluate prescriptive options, as well as provide clinical evidence to support the decision-making process. The document can also be used to help advise patients on the advantages and disadvantages of a particular course of treatment and as such, help practitioners meet the requirements for patient consent.”

To view the guidelines, visit www.rslsteeper.com.