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SURVEY INSTRUMENT. CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, 2018; ABSTRACT, POSTER PRESENTATION AT THE AOPA’S 101ST NATIONAL 
ASSEMBLY, SEPT. 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009                                                                     

 

1 

 
OPEN  ACCESS 

 

AOPA’S 101 ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABSTRACTS, SEPTEMBER 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018 
 

ABSTRACT (POSTER PRESENTATION) 

USER EXPERIENCES WITH TRADITIONAL AND 3D-PRINTED UPPER EXTREMITY 

PROSTHESES, DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY INSTRUMENT 

Jennifer Mankoff 1, Saiph Savage 2, Sydney Eckert*3, Chelsea Ngo*4, Goeran Fiedler5 

1 Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.  
2 Human Computer Interaction Lab, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department, West Virginia University,   

Morgantown, WV, USA. 
3Department of Clinical Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, WA, USA. 
4Western University of Health Sciences, Pediatric Therapy Network,  Pomona, USA.   
5Department  of  Rehabilitation  Science  and  Technology,  University  of  Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.  

*3 Email: eckerts@spu.edu 

*4 Email: csngo@westernu.edu 

 
 

INTRODUCTION 

Additive Manufacturing (AM), colloquial known as 3D-

printing, has been deemed capable to revolutionize a 

great number of industries, including the Health Care 

industry.1 In the field of upper limb prosthetics, it has 

been attempted to leverage the potential advantages of 

AM, such as crowd based design optimization, 

infrastructure independent fabrication, and economical 

material use, in the interest of providing low-cost, readily 

available devices to recipients whose needs were only 

insufficiently met by traditional approaches of device 

prescription and fitting. While the popular media has 

been quick to emphasize the potential – perceived or real 

– of 3D printed prostheses, clinicians have generally 

been less euphoric and the base of scientific evidence on 

questions related to these applications has been small.2 

As with most research endeavors in prosthetics and 

orthotics, recruiting sufficient sample sizes to allow solid 

conclusions is a perennial challenge also in this sub-field. 

As a consequence, the effectiveness of the many 3D-

printed upper limb devices made by volunteers of the E-

nable community (Fig.1) is yet to be determined. Self-

reported outcome assessment tools can somewhat 

mitigate the issue of low sample sizes. However, none 

have been applied to a wider range of device classes, to 

allow comparative analyses across those. We describe 

the development and preliminary testing of an online 

based survey tool to generate comparison outcome data 

for a wide variety of upper limb prosthetics devices, 

including varieties that are 3D-printed by hobbyists.  

METHODS 

A focus group consisting of experts from different 

disciplines related to upper extremity prosthesis device 

production was assembled to develop a comprehensive 

outcome survey tool, following four stages: 

 

1. Definition of goals and target populations that will 

be addressed with the survey. 

 

2. Identification of existing survey tools that can be 

adapted for the purposes of the eventual instrument. 

 

3. Combination of core areas identified under 1.) and 

2.) into a comprehensive questionnaire, utilizing 

skip logic and other methods to minimize survey 

length and user burden. 

 

4. Iterative testing and refining of the draft survey to 

assure technical function as well as 

appropriateness of evaluation and reporting 

approaches. The group, members of which are 

located throughout the continental US, conducted 

bi-weekly online meetings over the course of 

several months to accomplish these objectives. The 

eventual survey was realized in Qualtrics Research 

Core (Seattle, WA) and is now available online. 

Data collection is currently ongoing.  

 

RESULTS 

The current survey has 107 and 108 questions 

respectively in the version for caregivers (capturing 

experiences of underage users) and for end users. Those 

questions are organized in 10 blocks (Table 1), some of 

which are only presented if previous answers suggest that 

they are applicable in the individual case. Completion 

time for the complete survey is estimated at 15-20 

minutes. 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009  

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009
mailto:*3%20Email:%20eckerts@spu.edu
mailto:*4%20Email:%20csngo@westernu.edu
https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009


 

 

Mankoff  J, Savage S, Eckert S, Ngo C, Fiedler G. USER EXPERIENCES WITH TRADITIONAL AND 3D-PRINTED UPPER EXTREMITY PROSTHESES, DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE 
SURVEY INSTRUMENT. CANADIAN PROSTHETICS & ORTHOTICS JOURNAL, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, 2018; ABSTRACT, POSTER PRESENTATION AT THE AOPA’S 101ST NATIONAL 
ASSEMBLY, SEPT. 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018. https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009                                                                     

 

2 

 
OPEN  ACCESS 

 

AOPA’S 101 ST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABSTRACTS, SEPTEMBER 26-29, VANCOUVER, CANADA, 2018 
 

ABSTRACT (POSTER PRESENTATION) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DISCUSSION  

Dependable outcome data is important to evaluate and 

compare novel approaches to prosthetic device 

provision. Survey tools can reach a large target 

population and have a comparably low burden of 

participation, which mitigates the common issue of 

recruiting a desirably large sample population. However, 

establishing the internal and external validity of such 

tools can be challenging. Other challenges include 

assuring the sensitivity and specificity of an instrument 

that is intended to address the same construct in a wide 

and diverse population or range of device classes, 

respectively. We have attempted to solve those 

challenges by developing the survey based on existing 

tools and leveraging the combined insights from a 

diverse expert panel. It is our hope that it will succeed to 

gather a substantial quantity of outcome data with the 

here presented comprehensive survey tool. This will help 

objectively assess the comparative effectiveness of 

different prosthesis concepts, including 3D-printed 

devices, in specific user scenarios.  

CONCLUSION 

A recently developed comprehensive outcome data 

survey for users of upper limb prosthetic devices 

addresses limitations of existing tools.  

CLINICAL APPLICATIONS 

The survey may be used for individual outcome 

assessment purposes over time. Aggregated data may 

inform prescription of conventional and novel prosthetic 

devices in the future. 

REFERENCES 

1.Giannatsis and Dedoussis. Additive fabrication technologies 

applied to medicine and health care: a review. Int J Adv Manuf 

Tech 40.1-2 (2009): 116-127.     DOI: 10.1007/s00170-007-

1308-1 

2. Jelle ten Kate, Smit, 3D-printed upper limb prostheses: a 

review. Breedveld, Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol. 12.3 

(2017): 300-314. DOI:10.1080/17483107.2016.1253117 

3. Zuniga, Jorge, et al. Cyborg beast: a low-cost 3d-printed 

prosthetic hand for children with upper-limb differences. BMC 

Res notes (2015): 8:10. DOI: 10.1186/s13104- 015-0971-9  

 

  

Table 1: Overview of survey contents 

Block Description 

Num. of 

Questions 

1 Eligibility 6 

2 Demographics 12 

3 Type of device 20 

4-7 Usefulness of specific 

device(s) 

14 each 

8 Problems with device 9 

9 e-Nable community 3 

10 Conclusion 2 

 

Figure 1: Volunteer assembling a 3D-

printed prosthetic device 

Table 1: Overview of survey contents 

Block Description 

Num. of 

Questions 

1 Eligibility 6 

2 Demographics 12 

3 Type of device 20 

4-7 Usefulness of specific 

device(s) 

14 each 

8 Problems with device 9 

9 e-Nable community 3 

10 Conclusion 2 

 

Figure 1: Volunteer assembling a 3D-

printed prosthetic device 

Figure 1: Volunteer assembling a 3D-printed prosthetics 

device. 

https://doi.org/10.33137/cpoj.v1i2.32009

