A team of researchers used the Prosthetic Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ) outcome measure to collect feedback from transfemoral prosthesis users about their prosthetic knee design. The study concluded that prosthesis utility, natural gait, and ambulation improved when people with transfemoral amputations used a microprocessor-controlled prosthetic knee (MCPK) compared to a non-microprocessor-controlled prosthetic knee (NMCPK) during prosthetic rehabilitation.
Seventy-six adults with unilateral transfemoral amputations were classified into two groups. The 38 participants in the first group used the Otto Bock Genium, and the 38 participants in the second group used NMCPK hydraulic and total knee joints. The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 55 years old, with an average age of 33.8. Out of the total participants, 66 (86.84 percent) were male, and 10 (13.16 percent) were female.
Enrollment was based on a sequence of appointments where all participants answered the PEQ, with different subscale questions including utility, sounds, appearance, residual limb health, frustration, perceived response, social burden, ambulation, and quality of life. PEQ was filled out during the follow-up appointments at the prosthetic clinic through a visual analog scale.
The results indicated that the MCPK participants had significantly improved utility, appearance, ambulation, and total PEQ score, the same results as the male participants. Middle-adulthood (25-40 years) MCPK participants had a significant p-value in the score of utility, frustration, ambulation, and total PEQ score compared to early-adulthood (18-24 years) and late-adulthood (41-60 years) participants. Also, there was a significant improvement in the p-value in ambulation scores in participants using MCPK with amputations caused by diseases compared to amputations caused by trauma and congenital cause.
The open-access study, “Impacts of microprocessor-controlled versus non-microprocessor-controlled prosthetic knee joints among transfemoral amputees on functional outcomes: A comparative study,” was published in Cureus.
