Article

The investigators conducted a double-blind randomized crossover study to
determine the effects of prosthetic foot forefoot flexibility on oxygen cost and
subjective preference rankings of 13 unilateral transtibial prosthesis users.
Five experimental feet were fabricated for use in the study: F1, F2, F3, F4, and
F5. F1 was most flexible, F5 was least flexible, and F3 was designed to conform
to a biomimetic ankle-foot roll-over shape. The experimental feet were modeled
after the Shape&Roll prosthetic foot (originally produced by Northwestern
University, Chicago, Illinois; now in public domain) but had different numbers of
saw cuts within the forefoot members, allowing more or less flexibility during
walking. Participants walked at the same comfortable, freely selected speed on
the treadmill for 7 min with each foot while energy expenditure was measured. No
significant difference was found in oxygen cost (mL O(2)/kg/m) between the
different feet (p = 0.17), and the order of use was also not significant (p =
0.94). However, the preference ranking was significantly affected by the
flexibility of the feet (p = 0.002), with the most flexible foot (F1) ranking
significantly poorer than feet F3 (p = 0.003) and F4 (p = 0.004). Users may
prefer prosthetic feet that match the flexibility of an intact ankle-foot system,
even though we did not detect an energetic benefit at freely selected speeds.

Langue : ANGLAIS