The lower-extremity clinical study--its background and objectives.

IF IT may be postulated correctly that the most satisfactory artificial leg is the one which most nearly simulates the static and dynamic behavior of the natural limb it replaces, the successful practice of lower-extremity prosthetics poses a twofold requirement. The first is an intimate and detailed knowledge of the characteristics of the normal leg in all common activities, and the second is the ability to reproduce as nearly as possible, by a combination of design and fit of the substitute limb, the kinetic and kinematic features essential to normal locomotion. In the Artificial Limb Program, principal responsibility for fundamental studies in normal and amputee gait and in lower-extremity prosthetics has, since 1945, resided in the Prosthetic Devices Research Project at the University of California, Berkeley Campus. But the problems facing the leg amputee are not wholly prosthetic. Many, indeed, are clearly medical. For the amputee, being no longer the whole normal individual, manifests gross structural and physiological changes to be dealt with successfully only by the physician.