Prosthetist Luke Richards’ small office is tucked deep inside the Jamaica Plain branch of the VA Boston Healthcare System. One morning this spring, a patient’s carbon fiber leg rests by his desk. A chrome briefcase, with a picture of Greg Reynolds’ new arm on it, sits on the window sill.
Here, in the E Wing of the hospital, veterans are fitted for prosthetic devices. It doesn’t end with arms, legs, hands and feet, either. For example, Reynolds is itching to get back to regularly riding his ATV. So Richards suggested a sleeve that will fill out Reynolds’ shirt while he’s riding.
For Richards, the question is always the same.
“What do we need to do,” he says, “to get [the patient] doing what he used to do?”