Design and Fabrication of Improved Below-Knee Prosthesis to Better Mimic Natural Limb
Ekezie Jervas · Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering & Biosciences · 2017
Prosthesis is an artificial substitute or replacement of a part of the body such as tooth, eye, a facial bone, a hip, a knee or another joint, the leg, an arm.Lower limb prosthesis is device made to replace all or part of the leg or foot.Below-knee prosthesis specifically refers to a lower limb prosthesis that replaces part of the leg that is below the knee joint.Most amputees tend to live a dependent and sedentary life, especially when they cannot function effectively and efficiently with their prostheses.They tend to depend on their children and wards for some of their daily activities because of inability to design and fabricate a device (prosthesis) that will rehabilitate and reintegrate such a person into the society.This sometimes leads to a dormant life style, depression or psychological problems.Following this, there is need to design a prosthesis that will accommodate most functions of a lower limb, hence fully rehabilitate and reintegrate such amputees into the society.Secondly, effective and efficient ambulation is the major challenge faced by amputees.This poses a great challenge to them and the rehabilitation team as well.The focus of this research work is to design and fabricate an improved below-knee prosthesis that will better mimic natural limb in form/shape and function by inclusion of a devised ankle joint in the prosthesis.The main conclusion is that the inclusion of the devised ankle joint enhanced the functionality of the prosthesis, hence a better rehabilitation of the amputee than the conventional prosthesis which has direct pylon-to-foot assemblage without any provision for ankle joint.