preview

Biomechanic Paper

Decent Essays

A study conducted by Toshiki Kobayashi, Madeline L. Singer, Michael S. Orendurff, Fan Gao, Wayne K. Daly, and K. Bo Foreman and published in the journal of Clinical Biomechanics aimed to describe the relationship between the plantarflexion resistive moment of an articulated ankle–foot orthosis (AFO), a piece of corrective footwear, and the angles and moments of the ankle and knee while walking, in order to better aid patients post stroke. The major driving force of the study is that many patients who have suffered a stroke have resulting difficulties with mobility due to changes in their gait and muscle strength. This study suggests that there can possibly be a better designed and more personalized AFO to decrease unpleasant side effects of AFO use, such as pain and limited mobility. The subjects of the study were ten people who had recently had a stroke, two were women and eight were men. Additionally, these people had only one leg affected and were able to safely use all the testing equipment. Each person was first subject to four tests for a clinical assessment to better understand the subjects. These tests were the Modified Ashworth Scale, Timed Up and Go Test, manual muscle testing, and a test to determine the person’s range of motion. …show more content…

The articulated AFO used a spring that could be set to various conditions, S1, S2, S3, and S4. S1 was used as the control condition because it was considered the minimum resistive moment. The S1 condition did not consist of a spring on the AFO. All other conditions and results were compared to S1. Each subject went through four trials corresponding to the four spring conditions. To minimize changes in factors from one trial to the next, the treadmill was set to the same speed for every

Get Access