Development of a Passive Ankle Foot Prosthesis with Manually Adjustable Ankle Stiffness - Open Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation

OJTR > Vol.7 No.4, November 2019

Development of a Passive Ankle Foot Prosthesis with Manually Adjustable Ankle Stiffness ()

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Download as PDF (Size: 683KB) PP. 131-139

DOI: 10.4236/ojtr.2019.74009 813 Downloads 2,379 Views Citations

Author(s)

Tafadzwa Dongo^1*, Benard W. Ikua², Daniel Nyamongo Sagwe³, Elliot J. Rouse⁴

Affiliation(s)

¹Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Institute of Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation, Pan African University, Nairobi, Kenya.
²Department of Mechatronic Engineering, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.
³Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.
⁴Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

ABSTRACT

Major advancements have been made in the field of prosthetics, but devices remain largely out of reach for the amputee population domiciled in the developing nations, which makes up 80% of the entire amputee population of the world. The amputees are left to contend with low function prosthetics that do not mimic the behavior of the natural lost limb, with the long-term use of such devices leading to physical injury to the user. This work was aimed at developing a low-cost ankle-foot prosthesis that affords the user the opportunity to manually alter the stiffness of the ankle, as well storing energy in a forefoot section to aid push-off in late stance. In this paper, the design and results of structural analysis performed on critical parts of the prosthesis are presented, as well as the future direction of the work.

KEYWORDS

Passive Prosthesis, Ankle-Foot, Adjustable Stiffness, Toe-Section, Devices

Share and Cite:

Dongo, T. , Ikua, B. , Sagwe, D. and Rouse, E. (2019) Development of a Passive Ankle Foot Prosthesis with Manually Adjustable Ankle Stiffness. Open Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 7, 131-139. doi: 10.4236/ojtr.2019.74009.

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