Madalena's story

by Ros Thyda, Cambodian Prosthetist-Orthotist (above)

Madelena Da Costa, Female, 15 years old, She is congenital defected, her upper limb left side is Elbow Disarticulation, and right side is Trans Carpal metacarpals (there is only palm no finger).
Her lower limb Left side is Through Knee, and the right side is ankle Disarticulation.
Her parents were died when she was a child, she has four brothers, and she lives at Taibesi Haslaran, Dili, East Timor with all her siblings, with her aunty and uncle who have five children.

Madelena , she didn’t attend in school as the other child, due to her disability she just stays at home and try to manage herself to do most of the daily activity such as take a bath, dress, washing, cooking, etc. Her brothers teach her when they are free.

She has many friends and neighbors around her give support and helps her.

When she walks she walks on the knee, she needs to bend the right leg to get equal length with the left side (through knee) and it is very difficult to go far.

One day she, her aunty and uncle were watching TV, and they saw a program about ASSERT so the next day her aunty brought her to the clinic.

Through the assessment we decided to make the devices for the lowers first after that we are going to make the adaptive devices for her hands.

For the first fitting, it is very difficult for her to get the balance, it is very new for her that she needs to stand up and walk but she tried very hard to learn. After thee weeks training in parallel bar she can balance and manage to walk out of the parallel bar.

Now she can use it and walk independently in the walking area. She is very happy that she can walk, she wants to go to school to study.