Understanding patient preference in prosthetic ankle stiffness.

ABSTRACT:

Background

User preference has the potential to facilitate the design, control, and prescription of prostheses, but we do not yet understand which physiological factors drive preference, or if preference is associated with clinical benefits.

Methods

Subjects with unilateral below-knee amputation walked on a custom variable-stiffness prosthetic ankle and manipulated a dial to determine their preferred prosthetic ankle stiffness at three walking speeds. We evaluated anthropomorphic, metabolic, biomechanical, and performance-based descriptors at stiffness levels surrounding each subject's preferred stiffness.

Results

Subjects preferred lower stiffness values at their self-selected treadmill walking speed, and elected to walk faster overground with ankle stiffness at or a

SUBMITTER: Clites TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8390224 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature