Article

Amputees often experience soft tissue breakdown and discomfort from the high
transverse plane shear stresses between the residual limb and prosthesis. To
evaluate the effects of varying the transverse plane stiffness,
a small sample
population of lower limb amputees wore a novel variable stiffness torsion adapter
(VSTA). Peak transverse plane moments were evaluated for three fixed stiffness
levels (compliant: 0.30Nm/ degrees , intermediate: 0.57Nm/ degrees , stiff:
0.91Nm/ degrees ) while participants traversed five tasks of daily living that
emphasize transverse plane motion including: straight walking for reference, 90
degrees turns, 180 degrees turns, a static reach test, and the L-Test of
functional mobility. Results indicated that activities requiring high levels of
transverse plane motion (90 degrees and 180 degrees turns) had significantly
reduced peak transverse plane moments when walking with the compliant transverse
plane stiffness as compared to the stiff setting. Additionally, use of the VSTA
resulted in no measurable loss of mobility at self-selected walking speeds
between the three settings. These preliminary results indicate that a transverse
rotation adapter with variable stiffness capability could be useful for a lower
limb amputee to help reduce stresses at the socket-limb interface that result in
soft tissue breakdown and discomfort.
CI - Published by Elsevier B.V.

Langue : ANGLAIS