A research team compared the effect of four different prosthetic feet on lower-limb biomechanics during gait. They concluded that different prostheses induced different mechanical adaptations, and that gait analysis would provide measurement indicators that could point to a particular foot-ankle prosthesis.
For the study, a 34-year-old man with a transtibial amputation performed four gait analysis sessions with the Össur Variflex, Ottobock Meridium, Blatchford Echelon, and Proteor Kinterra foot-ankle prostheses to measure kinematic and kinetic parameters and gait symmetry.
The researchers found that the type of prosthesis had little effect on the participant’s spatiotemporal parameters, but increased hip angle, reduced knee flexion, and ankle dorsiflexion were observed on the prosthetic side throughout the stance phase. The data also indicated that for kinetic parameters, reduced propulsive force, reduced knee extension moment (mainly during Echelon and Kinterra conditions), and increased knee abduction moment (mainly during the Variflex and Meridium conditions) were measured in the residual limb, the study said.
Lower support moments were observed on the prosthetic side as compared to the unaffected leg, regardless of the type of prosthesis. The prostheses induced different lower-limb mechanical adaptations.
The open-access study, “The Influence of Transtibial Prosthesis Type on Lower-Body Gait Adaptation: A Case Study,” was published in the Human Gait Analysis and Rehabilitation special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
