The mechanical stiffness of running-specific prostheses likely affects the functional abilities of athletes with leg amputations. However, each prosthetic manufacturer recommends prostheses based on subjective stiffness categories rather than performance based metrics. The actual mechanical stiffness values of running-specific prostheses (i.e. kN/m) are unknown. Consequently, we sought to chara...

When humans hop or run on different surfaces, they adjust their effective leg stiffness to offset changes in surface stiffness. As a result, the overall stiffness of the leg-surface series combination remains independent of surface stiffness. The purpose of this study was to determine whether humans make a similar adjustment when springs are placed in parallel with the leg via a lower limb orth...

Accumulating evidence implicates the significance of the physical properties of the niche in influencing the behavior, growth and differentiation of stem cells. Among the physical properties, extracellular stiffness has been shown to have direct effects on fate determination in several cell types in vitro. However, little evidence exists concerning whether shifts in stiffness occur in vivo duri...

Because wrist rotation dynamics are dominated by stiffness (Charles SK, Hogan N. J Biomech 44: 614-621, 2011), understanding how humans plan and execute coordinated wrist rotations requires knowledge of the stiffness characteristics of the wrist joint. In the past, the passive stiffness of the wrist joint has been measured in 1 degree of freedom (DOF). Although these 1-DOF measurements inform u...

OBJECTIVES To explore patients' concepts of stiffness in polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), and how they think stiffness should be measured. METHODS Eight focus groups were held at three centres involving 50 patients with current/previous PMR. Each group had at least one facilitator and one rapporteur making field notes. An interview schedule was used to stimulate discussion. Interviews were recor...

Currently, it is unknown whether changing prosthetic limb stiffness affects the total limb stiffness and influences the shock absorption of an individual with transtibial amputation. The hypotheses tested within this study are that a decrease in longitudinal prosthetic stiffness will produce (1) a reduced total limb stiffness, and (2) reduced magnitude of peak impact forces and increased time d...

The fundamental objective in developing variable stiffness actuators is to enable the actuator to deliberately tune its stiffness. This is done through controlling the energy flow extracted from internal power units, i.e., the motors of a variable stiffness actuator (VSA). However, the stiffness may also be unintentionally affected by the external environment, over which, there is no control. T...