What is the magnitude of the amputee population of the United States? What is the composition of this group of physically handicapped individuals in terms of their sex, ages, and sites of amputation? What proportion of amputations is caused by disease? By trauma? By tumor? The answers to these questions are today more a matter of opinion than of documented fact since statistics relating to ampu...

This author’s perspective is possibly unique among the other contributors to this volume because he witnessed the early evolution of rehabilitation engineering in Canada and the United States, first working as a young clinical rehabilitation engineer and later as an academic researcher in both countries. This contribution focuses largely on the Canadian contribution, with emphasis on the politi...

BACKGROUND: The number of patients receiving orthotics and prosthetic services is increasing globally. A way to investigate patients’ insight about provided them evaluate their satisfaction with the received services. Furthermore, incorporating preferences into practice an inseparable part evidence-based practice. Applying such information in can contribute enhancement quality services, effecti...

The Veterans Administration is increasingly employing standards in its Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Program. The standards now used are documents (Fig. 1) which present desired qualities and features of prosthetic and orthotic hardware and orthopedic aids and of fitted limbs and braces and then specify those attributes necessary to control their quality, safety, and performance. Standards for se...

2 Technical Director, Prosthetics-Orthotics Research and Development Unit, Manitoba Rehabilitation Hospital, 800 Sherbrook St., Winnipeg 2, Man. At a recent meeting of the Workshop Panel on LowerExtremity Fitting (2), which is sponsored by the Subcommittee on Design and Development of the Committee on Prosthetics Research and Development, there was prolonged discussion of below-knee prostheses....

Electromyographic control is a technique that involve with the detection, processing and classification of the electromyography signal that could be applied in human-assisting robots, prosthesis application or rehabilitation devices. Electromyographic signals can be used in biomedical engineering and/or rehabilitation field, as potential sources of control for prosthetics and orthotics. In such...

In this study we explored the factors that affect assistive technology (AT) provision within the Navajo Nation using a qualitative approach to inquiry. Focus groups were held in which AT users discussed their awareness of AT and their need for, use of, and satisfaction with AT devices and services. Twenty-eight individuals who used wheelchairs, orthotics or prosthetics, hearing aids, communicat...

The aim of this study was to determine the degree of pelvic tilt in the three dimensions, the trunk muscle strength and effects on gait in trans-tibial amputated patients. This study comprised of 22 unilateral trans-tibial amputated patients who were seen at the authors' Prosthetics and Orthotics Laboratory for the purpose of prosthetic provision. Measurements were made using plurimeter and cal...