Liberating Technologies (LTI), Holliston, Massachusetts, the research branch of College Park Industries, Warren, Michigan, has been awarded a contract for $1,498,051 from the United States Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity. The funding will fuel development of a socket fit sensing system to assist people in the self-management of prosthetic socket fit.
For the next four years, Ben McDonald, the principal investigator and an LTI senior software engineer, will coordinate the project with the Minneapolis VA Health Care System and the University of Michigan. The project, called Socket Fit Sensing and Management System, aims to refine and optimize a previously developed socket-fit sensing prototype for robustness, durability, and ease of use, in preparation for take-home testing.
The team will enhance the socket fit detection algorithms through testing on a larger population with a wide range of user characteristics, socket/suspension types, and during a variety of ambulatory tasks. While evaluating the effectiveness of the system, the researchers will determine the improvement in amputees’ self-management of socket fit through the use of prosthetic socks and generate pilot data to fuel a future clinical trial.
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