All the patient wanted to do was walk up steps so that he could visit his grandchildren.

A few years ago, Michael Verbsky, PT, MSPT, was working with a patient who was slow in learning to trust his prosthetic limb on level-surface walking. So even thinking about going up steps with it scared him. He was afraid he would fall, "floundering like a fish at the bottom of the staircase," Verbsky recalls.