Woven model based geometric design of elastic medical braces

This paper presents an algorithm for automatically computing the planar patterns of custom-made assistive medical braces, which are employed to restrict the motion of the joints (such as wrist and knee) that suffer from musculoskeletal disorders caused by repetitive strain injuries. An elastic brace is manufactured by warping a planar elastic fabric pattern. With a specified material, different shapes of planar patterns for producing a brace will generate different biomechanical effects on the joint. As an assistive medical device, an elastic brace is often requested to provide certain normal pressures at certain specific locations on the joint. Traditionally the planar pattern of a brace respecting the prescribed normal pressure requirement is designed through empirical tests by trial-and-error. We develop a woven fitting based method in this paper to automate this geometric design process. c © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.