Follow a beatLife & mobility Systems & access Community Sport & culture

Independent news for real life

What matters right now.

Clear reporting and practical context for amputees, limb-different people, families, and the people in their corner.

Sport & cultureOctober 25, 2026

Wisła Kraków won the EAFF Champions League 6-0. Sporting's goalkeeper took home the best keeper award.

Wisła Kraków claimed their second European Amputee Football Federation Champions League title in Fano, Italy with a 6-0 final win over Sporting. The individual awards tracked a more complicated tournament than the scoreline suggests.

Read the full story

Latest from the desk

View all

Sport & cultureOct 23
Eastern DRC held its first national amputee football tournament. Three provinces showed up.
The Congolese National Paralympic Committee and the ICRC ran the country's first national amputee football tournament in Uvira last month. South Kivu won. Two expected provinces couldn't afford to get there.
CommunityOct 23
50 Legs has helped more than 600 people get a professionally fitted prosthetic leg they could not otherwise pay for. Here is how the nonprofit works.
The Clearwater nonprofit covers professional fitting costs when insurance falls short, replaces devices as children grow, and bills recipients nothing. SAFE Structure Designs, a Las Vegas defense engineering firm, announced this week it is joining as a donor.
Life & mobilityOct 23
Phantom Neuro implanted its prosthetic control device in the first human participants. What the study is, and what it is not.
The CYBORG early feasibility study placed Phantom X, a subcutaneous sensor that picks up residual limb muscle signals and sends wireless commands to a prosthetic, in its first participants in Melbourne. The device is investigational and not approved for clinical use.
Systems & accessOct 23
A Spokane community college merged two O&P programs into one. Its technician cohort tripled.
Spokane Falls Community College restructured its O&P technician track from two programs into a single one-year course in 2024, and enrollment jumped from three students to eleven. The workforce gap behind that growth isn't local.
Systems & accessOct 22
Three CMS decisions moving right now while Congress campaigns
Upper-limb prosthetic coding changes, a new prior authorization requirement, and a fresh OTS orthotic competitive bidding round are all in motion at CMS. The NAAOP's October briefing details where each stands and what the field is pushing for.
Systems & accessOct 21
Embla Medical's prosthetics device sales grew 7 percent in Q3 2026. The company's patient care segment grew zero.
Embla Medical posted $250 million in Q3 2026 sales, with its prosthetics and neuro orthotics segment growing at 7 percent organically. Its patient care segment, which covers owned O&P clinics, came in flat. That gap is worth understanding.

Find your way in

News by topic

A person with a prosthetic leg walking beside a community garden

Explore the beatLife & mobilityBodies, care, and everyday life

An accessible public building entrance with a ramp

Explore the beatSystems & accessPolicy, coverage, and the fine print

A group of people collaborating around a table in a bright community workshop

Explore the beatCommunityPeople, work, and shared experience

An adaptive athlete running on an outdoor court at sunset

Explore the beatSport & cultureCompetition, creativity, and visibility

Fresh reporting

More to know

Browse all 184 stories ↗

Systems & access

Three CMS decisions moving right now while Congress campaigns

Upper-limb prosthetic coding changes, a new prior authorization requirement, and a fresh OTS orthotic competitive bidding round are all in motion at CMS. The NAAOP's October briefing details where each stands and what the field is pushing for.

Systems & access

Embla Medical's prosthetics device sales grew 7 percent in Q3 2026. The company's patient care segment grew zero.

Embla Medical posted $250 million in Q3 2026 sales, with its prosthetics and neuro orthotics segment growing at 7 percent organically. Its patient care segment, which covers owned O&P clinics, came in flat. That gap is worth understanding.

Life & mobility

Hanger's research arm is asking whether specific Plus-M questions predict injurious falls in prosthetic users

The Plus-M is already in use at many prosthetics clinics. Research selected for the 2027 Thranhardt Lecture Series Award examines whether individual items in it carry fall-risk signal beyond the composite score.

Community

Nine years of asking O&P clinicians to think about the relationship, not just the fitting

John Brinkmann built the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists Behavioral Science Society from scratch in 2017. His successor, Jacalyn Harris, takes over a society that has spent nearly a decade making the clinical encounter's human side a formal professional concern.

Life & mobility

Phantom Neuro implanted its subdermal prosthetic control device in the first human participants. The outpatient procedure took about an hour and required no general anesthesia.

Phantom Neuro's CYBORG early feasibility study has enrolled its first participants, who received subdermal implants designed to pick up muscle signals from the residual limb and route them wirelessly to a compatible upper-limb prosthesis.

Systems & access

K-levels determine which prosthetic you can get. Researchers tested whether sensor data could make that decision more objective.

K-levels are the functional classification numbers that largely determine which prosthetic devices Medicare will pay for. A PLOS One study tested a method using inertial sensors to classify ambulatory function in real-world conditions, and found it worth pursuing further.

A sunlit table with a notebook, map, keys, and everyday care items

Practical, not prescriptive

Keep the useful stuff close.

Plain-language starting points for daily questions, appointments, travel, work, and care.

Explore every guide

Have a lead or a correction?

Help us look closer.

Know about a policy change, local story, useful resource, or something we got wrong?

Send the desk a note