Genium prosthetic leg/knee joint, 2012 (c)-2018

Made by Ottobock and used at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, Headley Court, Surrey, 2012 (c)-2018.

The Genium knee joint replaced the C-leg computerised prosthetic. This high activity prosthetic allows for activities including walking and running. Motion sensors within the prosthetic can detect inclines and the camber of the ground the amputee is traversing, and the information is communicated directly to the knee joint to adjust accordingly. In 2012 it was deemed the most appropriate prosthetic leg for young and strong above the knee amputees such as service personnel returning injured from Afghanistan. The issuing of this specific Genium knee at Headley Court was relatively short lived, as it was replaced by the Genium X3.

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were widely used by insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq to inflict lethal and debilitating injuries on Coalition forces during the conflicts that developed after the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001. A Ministry of Defence report, 'Amputation Statistics 1 April 2014 - 31 March 2019', published on 1 August 2019, records that from 7 October 2001 to 31 March 2019, 333 UK service personnel, serving in the Afghanistan or Iraq, suffered injuries that included a traumatic or surgical amputation.