Team Osseo Stellies

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📍 South Africa | Led by .ortho
🦿Osseo-integration
💡The future of prosthetics is here
🌍Treating patients globally

05/11/2026

It's International Prosthetics and Orthotics Day, and this year's theme is people. That's especially true in osseointegration, where getting a patient walking again takes an integrated team, not a single person.

Dr Franz Birkholtz leads the surgery, but that's only the start. From wound care to rehabilitation to prosthetic fitting, every member of the Osseo team plays a part in each step of the journey, all working together around the patient.

Today we're thanking them, along with every prosthetist and orthotist doing this work around the world.

29/10/2026

She makes it look easy, but we can assure you it wasn’t.

In this video she attaches her prosthesis herself, stands up and walks across the room without a second thought. What you don’t see are the months that came before: early loading sessions when every step took real effort, hard work in rehab, and plenty of days that didn’t go to plan.

Every osseointegration journey is different, and none of them happen overnight. This moment is built on all of those hard days, and everything in between.

27/10/2026

"Am I even a candidate for this?" is the one question that stops more people from reaching out than any other.

If you're dealing with pain, skin irritation, sweating, or a prosthesis that never quite stays comfortable no matter how it's adjusted, that's usually the first sign osseointegration might be worth exploring. It tends to suit people who are generally healthy, don't smoke, and are genuinely ready to commit to the rehab process that comes with it.

While every case is assessed individually and there's no guarantee, this gives you a reasonable starting point - enough to know whether the conversation is worth having.

If you have any questions, drop them down below and the team will get back to you.

25/10/2026

"Where" you recover matters almost as much as "how" you recover, especially when you're a long way away from home.

Ascend Recovery is set up specifically for out-of-town patients, giving them somewhere to rest between appointments rather than
living out of a hotel room during one of the more demanding stretches of their journey. It's the small detail that makes a real difference to how manageable the whole experience feels.

If you're planning treatment from outside the area or internationally, ask about recovery accommodation early - sorting it out before you travel means one less thing to worry about, and more peace of mind once you're here.

23/10/2026

Once the implants were in, the next step for Marcus was the loading phase, a key part of recovery after bilateral osseointegration with Dr Franz Birkholtz.

Weight was introduced gradually under close supervision. A harness device controlled how much load went through each side, while parallel bars let Marcus offload through his arms as his legs built up to carrying more.

Because his two implants were different lengths, each side was paced individually.

It was slow, careful work, and it laid the foundation for everything that came next.

22/10/2026

What would a surgeon want to know if he were the one in the patient’s chair? Dr Franz Birkholtz puts himself in that position and shares the questions he would ask if he were considering osseointegration.

20/10/2026

Movement, pressure, vibration. Patients with bone-anchored prostheses report feeling all three through the implant, not just around it.

Here's the science behind osseoperception and why it matters for balance and confidence on your feet.

13/10/2026

Two different journeys, one shared understanding of what it actually takes to get here.

There's something about sitting with someone who's walked the same road - the good days and the hard ones. Moments like this are as much a part of recovery as the surgery itself and these are the moments our patients remember forever.

09/10/2026

Months of work, one step at a time - and this is where it leads.

Every person in this video put in the hard work long before the camera started rolling. This is what dedication looks like once it's paid off.

06/10/2026

Marcus spent four years wheelchair-bound, unable to tolerate a socket prosthetic on either side. On 20 August 2026, he underwent bilateral osseointegration in a single procedure.

His two stumps weren't equal in length, which meant the surgical and loading plan had to account for that difference before anything else could happen.

The procedure was carried out by Dr Franz Birkholtz, supported by the wider Osseo Stellies team, including wound care, physiotherapy, psychology and prosthetics, working together on a case that needed more than one kind of expertise.

Solving for two implants of different lengths took some genuinely inventive problem-solving. There's more to Marcus's story still to come.

Address

F3 Mediclinic Winelands Orthopaedic Hospital
Stellenbosch
7600

Website

https://osseo.health/

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