The UC-BL Shoe Insert (Fig. 1) was de­ veloped at the Biomechanics Laboratory in San Francisco as a part of several research projects on the mechanisms of the human foot. The ability of the insert to modify and control these mechanisms led to its application to many foot problems. For example, it was considered that the insert should be able to take over, at least in part, the contribution of t...

CONTEXT Foot structure has been shown to affect aspects of neuromuscular control, including postural stability and proprioception. However, despite an association between pronated and supinated foot structures and the incidence of lateral ankle sprains, no one to our knowledge has measured muscle reaction time to a simulated ankle-sprain mechanism in participants with different foot structures....

The prevalence of individuals with flat feet and high arches is very (between 15% to 37%), which can often lead other orthopedic complications. Three-dimensional-printed insoles are being studied validated for their effects in correcting these highly prevalent foot disorders. Highly customizable parameters while printing the insole allows precise correction biomechanics. In this study, 200 pati...

Previous studies generally selected one foot to classify participants into groups with different types and then analyzed the running or walking biomechanics for limb. Such approach may have neglected possible differences in morphology gait between two limbs. This study aimed compare morphological characteristics kinematics of lower extremities left right limbs among a group healthy, asymptomati...

The lack of functional ankle musculature in lower limb amputees contributes to the reduced prosthetic ankle push-off, compensations at other joints and more energetically costly gait commonly observed in comparison to non-amputees. A variety of energy storing and return prosthetic feet have been developed to address these issues but have not been shown to sufficiently improve amputee biomechani...

Foot and ankle surgeons are frequently challenged by the devastating systemic consequences of diabetes mellitus manifested through neuropathy, integumentary and joint breakdown, delayed healing, decreased ability to fight infection, and fragile tendon/ligaments. Diabetic neuropathic pedal ulcerations lead to amputations at an alarming rate and also carry a high mortality rate. This article will...

Lower limb dynamic cadaveric gait simulators are useful to investigate the biomechanics of the foot and ankle but many systems, including earlier versions of ours, have several common limitations including, simplified tibial kinematics [1-4], greatly reduced velocities [1-4], and open loop trial and error vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) control [1, 2, 4]. To address these limitations, we ...

Every day, clinicians change the point of breakover of a foot, add a wedge or a pad to a shoe, or resect part of a hoof capsule. All of these change the way the foot functions in some manner. We make some of these changes because that is what we were instructed to do in school, because it may have worked for us before, or because it makes sense to us—but how often do we actually think about the...

In this paper we propose the time&fitness-dependent Hamiltonian form of human biomechanics, in which total mechanical + biochemical energy is not conserved. Starting with the Covariant Force Law, we first develop autonomous Hamiltonian biomechanics. Then we extend it using a powerful geometrical machinery consisting of fibre bundles, jet manifolds, polysymplectic geometry and Hamiltonian connec...