Group rehabilitation for the vascular-disease amputee.

Group therapy for lower-extremity, vascular-disease amputees was successful in the return of these patients to their normal milieu. Thirty men (mean age, 63 years) were studied during a one-year period. The group meetings progressed from a phase of directed therapy to one of nondirected therapy. This group of hospitalized amputees was chosen specifically because of its social, economic and medical identity. After a self-identified adequate period of therapy, all patients returned to their former places in society.