The common manufacturing process of prosthetic sockets is usually a time- and labor consuming activity. This project’s purpose was to look for alternative manufacturing methods that could speed up the process and enhance the experience for the patient for example make some personal design or make the socket lighter. The main goal was to investigate which properties could be achieved by applying Electron Beam Melting as an alternative manufacturing process for prosthetic sockets by applying an earlier developed methodology. An investigation of earlier scientific works with the keywords (additive manufacturing, free form fabrication, orthopedic, prosthetic sockets and rapid manufacturing) was done as well as gathering knowledge how to operate and handle the machines necessary to carry out the project. An updated version of the methodology was developed where the design was verified using finite element analysis. With the updated version the methodology contained nine steps, which in short was as follows. First apprehend an inner socket from an orthopedic clinic with a pattern drawn up on it, the pattern is then transferred to a computer environment and manipulated to the desired shape and thickness. A compressive strength test, both virtual and experimental, was designed by a modified version of the ISO-10328 standard and the virtual design was verified before the socket was manufactured in the Electron Beam Melting machine. The manufactured socket was tested in the experimental set-up to verify the virtual one. The result was a personal designed socket of Ti6Al4V including the male pyramid for connection and a suspension system, which consisted of an inner socket and a one-way valve. It was concluded that Electron Beam Melting could be used as an alternative manufacturing process of prosthetic sockets.

Background: Meeting the prosthetists needs, and barriers is important to successful implement evidence into practice. Thus, several implementation methods have been initiated, the authors saw a need to create a Communication Tool based on evidence from transfemoral socket designs, to ease the process of assisting prosthetists in facilitating evidential reasoning.   Aim: To investigate if a Communication Tool can facilitate the usage of evidence into practice by assisting the clinical decision making.  Method: The study is divided into two parts. First the development of the Communication Tool, which is based on the Knowledge to Action model plus an update of studies from a systematic review by Brodie et al.2021. The second part consists of a qualitative pilot-study using semi-structured synchronously interviews to collect data from two Danish working prosthetists. For the analysis a conventional content analysis with an inductive approach was used.  Findings: Findings from the analysis of the interviews compiled eight categories and twenty-five sub-categories covering three key themes identified during the creation of the Communication Tool: Barriers, internal usability, and external usability of the Communication Tool.   Conclusion: The Communication Tool showed to be an effective method to assist and facilitate evidence-based reasonings. The participants found the tool to be useful and appraised positively regarding communicating relevant content an easy to navigate in. Minor improvements are needed, which are related to the quality assessment system and the system of reference as well as some linguistic formulations.