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Risks Surgical and Medical Acute and Chronic Rejection Removing the Hand Anti-Rejection Medicine Pain and Discomfort Emotional and Social
Recovery Surgical Recovery Rehabilitation Process Lifestyle Changes Caregiver's Role
Decision-Making Optional Treatment Weigh All Options Mental Health Changes Social Support Commitments Financial Costs
Options Cosmetic Prostheses Body-Powered Prostheses Electric Prostheses Myoelectric Prostheses Switch and Pressure Sensors LUKE Arm Osseointegration No Prosthesis
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Home > Risks > Emotional and Social Problems

Emotional and Social Problems

 

Even though hand/arm transplant recipients commonly experience some emotional and social difficulties adjusting to their new hand/arm, these difficulties are not expected to cause long-term distress. Recipients may need psychiatric counseling or therapy to help cope with these feelings and with adjusting to the new hand/arm. The transplant team will closely follow how recipients are coping and will help provide support and counseling to recipients.

Emotional

Emotional problems include different feelings that a hand/arm transplant recipient can experience. For example:

  • Fear that your body may reject the transplanted hand(s)/arm(s).
  • Fear that you will react poorly to the medicine.
  • Preoccupied with or constantly thinking about the transplant(s) or your health.
  • Disappointment that the hand/arm does not look as good or perform as well as you had hoped.
  • Guilty feelings about the death of the donor.
  • Difficulty conforming to the medicine regimen and its side effects.
  • Overwhelming sense of personal responsibility for the success of the procedure.
  • Discomfort or disorientation as you look at the new hand.
  • Not accepting the hand as a part of your body and identity.
  • Difficulty controlling pain or risk of reactivating substance dependency if you had a prior history of alcohol misuse or controlled substance misuse.
  • Learn more about the mental health changes that hand/arm transplant recipients may experience.

Medication-Related Emotional Side Effects

Hand/arm transplant recipients may take steroid medicines as part of their anti-rejection medicine regimen. Steroid medicines can cause the following effects:

  • Agitation, difficulty concentrating and working, or disruption in your relations with other people
  • Depression and/or anxiety, which can include:
    • sad mood
    • loss of energy
    • disruption in eating and sleeping habits
    • irritability with other people
    • withdrawal from other people
    • thoughts of suicide
    • attempts to take your own life

Social

Intimacy

If you have difficulty accepting the new hand/arm as your own, then you may face challenges with how you and your hand/arm interact with other people. 

Social Integration

Some risks involving social integration after the transplant can include:

  • The inability to hide the new significant change in yourself. This can contribute to a lack of privacy, or a loss of confidentiality.
  • There might be a need for additional surgeries to improve the function or appearance of the hand or arm after the initial transplant surgery.

Identity

Recipients might experience changes to their identity, in the following ways:

  • It may be difficult for you to integrate “someone else’s hand” into your body image or accept your self-image, particularly because your hand/arm is visible.1,2
  • You may have feelings of loss, especially if the hand/arm transplant needs to be removed, or if the surgery is not successful.1
  • You may have unexpected scarring at the place where the transplant was attached.

Does Having Another Person’s Fingerprints Affect the Recipient?

  • Having another person’s fingerprints has not been a problem for recipients to date.
  • In one patient’s case, a recipient received a hand/arm transplant from a donor who had been involved in criminal activity. Because the recipient was never involved in criminal activity, the recipient never had a problem with the transplanted fingerprints.³
 

References

Sources

  1. Slatman J, Widdershoven G. Hand Transplants and Bodily Integrity. Body & Society. 2010;16(3):69-92.  

  2. Talbot SG, Carty MJ, Jensen SE, et al. Adjustment to Amputation and Interest in Upper Limb Transplantation. SAGE Open Medicine. 2019;7:1-6.

  3. Szajerka T, Jurek B, Jablecki J. Transplanted Fingerprints: A Preliminary Case Report 40 Months Posttransplant. Transplant Proc. 2010;42(9):3753-3755.