Helping hands: caring for the upper extremity transplant patient.

Caring for upper extremity transplant recipients can offer challenges and opportunities to nursing staff in combining new patient procedures, new technologies, and complex patient care needs including unique physical care, monitoring and observation, rehabilitation expectations, and psychiatric/psychosocial support. Medical professionals continue to be apprehensive about the risks of immunosuppressive therapy and the possibility of acute and chronic rejection. The sustained development and research into reliable, reduced-dose immunosuppression or immunomodulatory strategies could expand the life-enhancing benefits of reconstructive transplantation.