Questions patients ask

For a below-knee amputation in someone otherwise well, walking indoors on a prosthesis within weeks of fitting is a common trajectory. Above the knee takes longer and demands more. The limiting factor is usually fitness and healing rather than motivation.

Often yes. Common reasons are a socket that no longer fits, a gait pattern that has caused back or knee pain on the sound side, declining fitness, or wanting to move up to more demanding activity. These are shorter blocks with narrower goals.

Yes, in two ways: healing is slower and more fragile, and the remaining limb is at real risk. Skin protection, footwear and glycaemic management move from being advice to being part of the programme.

Yes, though the programme looks different — more occupational therapy, more work on one-handed technique and on whether a prosthesis will actually be used, which for upper limb devices is a more open question than for legs.

That is a legitimate choice and more common than the industry admits, particularly for upper limb and for higher-level lower limb amputation. The programme then focuses on independence without one, and nobody will spend your time persuading you otherwise.