Level of the quality of life after lower limb amputation due to arteriosclerotic disease

Background. In recent years "the quality of life" in medical disciplines has become more and more popular. It enables increasing the importance of treatment but also allows the patients to keep the quality of life that suit them. This attitude is closely related with changing the way of perceiving the patient by medicine in a holistic and empirical approach. It widely depends on previous experiences and one's feelings, social roles and the attitude to one's own disease and its consequences. The patients after limb amputation due to atherosclerotic disease are the group, whose life and its quality dramatically changes. Material and methods. The research was carried out on the group of 80 males and females after limb amputation due to atherosclerotic disease. Forty of the study group were from Germany and forty were from Poland. In the study a self-made questionnaire and the standardized questionnaire SF-36 were used. Results. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of life of the the patients after lower limb amputation caused by ischaemia ( related to atherosclerotic disease). Evaluation was carried out after a few regroupings according to the factors such as: nationality, use of prostheses, staying economically active, discomfort around stump, difficulties in functioning. Conclusions. 1. Quality of life after lower limb amputation is dependent on efficient cooperation of the interdisciplinary team. 2. German patients evaluate their quality of life much higher than their Polish counterparts, with respect to physical fitness, pain, vitality, social functioning and mental condition. 3. Disabled patients who use protheses and are economically active have had much higher quality of life in all researched subscales. 4. The patients who had complained of difficulties in moving in their environment evaluated the quality of life much lower.