Experimental Studies on Kinematics and Kinetics of Walking with an Assistive Knee Brace
Assistive knee brace is a species of wearable lower extremity exoskeletons. Such assistive equipment can enhance peoples strength and provide desired locomotion to have advantages over wheelchairs, which are commonly used for patients with mobility disorders. However, the integration between the assistive knee brace and the user is challenging as inaccurate alignments may adversely affect the biomechanics of the knee joint. The goal of this study is to evaluate the changes between normal walking and walking with an assistive knee brace in off mode. The assistive knee brace was developed by integrating a multifunctional actuator with a custom-made knee-ankle-foot orthosis in order to minimize excessive shifting and to improve alignment to the knee joint. Spatial and temporal gait parameters, joint kinematics and joint kinetics parameters were compared. In general, the observed results showed that most of the gait parameters were not affected when walking with the knee brace. The only significant differences were found in knee flexion and knee rotational motions. These results indicated that walking with the developed knee brace provided minimal hindrance to the user and assured that assistive torque can be applied to the knee joint.
Aaron See-Long Hung Hongtao Guo Wei-Hsin Liao Daniel Tik-Pui Fong Kai-Ming Chan
Sport PerJormance and B iomechanics Laboratory Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology Prince of Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, N.T.
国际会议
深圳
英文
45-50
2011-06-06（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）