BACKGROUND Patellofemoral pain syndrome is a highly prevalent musculoskeletal overuse condition that has a significant impact on participation in daily and physical activities. A recent systematic review highlighted the lack of high quality evidence from randomised controlled trials for the conservative management of patellofemoral pain syndrome. Although foot orthoses are a commonly used inter...

A linear piston hydraulic angular-velocity-based control knee joint was designed for people with knee-extensor weakness to engage knee-flexion resistance when knee-flexion angular velocity reaches a preset threshold, such as during a stumble, but to otherwise allow free knee motion. During mechanical testing at the lowest angular-velocity threshold, the device engaged within 2 degrees knee flex...

A new orthosis (SEPRIX) which combines user friendliness with low energy cost of walking has been developed and will be subject to a clinical comparison with conventional hip-knee-ankle-foot orthoses. In designing such comparative trials it was considered it may be worthwhile to use previous clinical studies as practical examples. A literature search was conducted in order to select all compara...

background: over the years, various types of orthoses have been designed to assist subjects with spinal cord injury (sci) to stand and walk. however, the functional performance of the orthoses has not been adequate, that is, patients experience stability problems, consume excessive energy during ambulation, and generally require assistance in donning and doffing the devices. this research is ai...

In this study, 10 normal volunteers and 5 sports-trained paraplegics with lesions between T6 and L2 were studied whilst walking with axillary crutches and knee-anlde-foot orthoses. All subjects walked at their preferred speed on a figureof- eight track. Normal subjects also walked at slower and faster speeds. Oxygen consumption, heart rate and rating of perceived exertion were measured. In...

The gait cycle is typically viewed as a periodic sequence of discrete events, starting with heel contact during initial stance and ending with knee extension during late swing. This convention has informed the design of control strategies for powered prostheses and orthoses, which almost universally utilize the concept of a finite state machine (FSM), e.g., the five states in Fig. 1. Each state...

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of knee unlocked medially linked Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthoses (MLKAFO) to the conventional knee locked MLKAFO during walking by means of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES). A 33-year-old male with complete T8 paraplegia participated in this study. The stimulator has two hand switches to change the stimulation pattern. When the switch was turn...

In this paper, we present the mechanical design, control algorithm, and functional evaluation of a quasi-passive compliant stance control knee-ankle-foot orthosis. The orthosis implements a spring in parallel with the knee joint during the stance phase of the gait and allows free rotation during the swing phase. The design is inspired by the moment-angle analysis of the knee joint revealing tha...

OBJECTIVE A systematic review of the available literature on the effectiveness of knee-ankle-foot orthoses in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. DESIGN A computer search was carried out (MEDLINE 1966-97, CINAHL 1982-97) using the key words muscular dystrophy, rehabilitation, locomotion, braces or orthotic devices. References in relevant publications and nonindexed journals were als...