The cerebral palsy symptoms are, among others, balance and gait disorders. The goal of this study was to assess balance capabilities in children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy rehabilitated using Lokomat active orthosis. The experimental group included children with cerebral palsy, aged 6-14 years, independent standing, level II-III according to GMFCS classification. The cohort was random...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate upper-extremity kinematics and range of shoulder motion while wearing a wrist extension orthosis compared to the free hand at initial testing and after a week's wear. METHOD A convenience sample of healthy women, ages 20-50 years, performed a stacking task and a pouring task, freehanded and splinted, at two times, 1 week apart in this cou...

The goal of this study was to investigate clinically relevant biomechanical conditions relating to the setup and alignment of knee-ankle-foot orthoses and the influence of these conditions on knee extension moments and orthotic stance control during gait. Knee moments were collected using an instrumented gait laboratory and concurrently a load transducer embedded at the knee-ankle-foot orthosis...

Understanding trends in the prevalence of children with cerebral palsy is vital to evaluating and estimating supportive services for children, families, and caregivers. The majority of children with cerebral palsy require lower extremity orthoses to stabilize their muscles. The pediatric nurse needs a special body of knowledge to accurately assess, apply, manage, teach, and evaluate the use of ...

Background Patellofemoral pain is a common disorder whose aetiology is multifactorial and is often attributed to foot function. Foot orthoses are commonly prescribed for this condition; however the mechanisms by which they work are poorly understood. Previous studies using single segment foot models have hypothesised that it may be control of the midfoot which holds the key to understanding ort...

The possibility to realize highly customized orthoses is receiving boost thanks to the widespread diffusion of low-cost 3D printing technologies. However, rapid prototyping (RP) with 3D printers is only the final stage of patient personalized orthotics processes. A reverse engineering (RE) process is in fact essential before RP, to digitize the 3D anatomy of interest and to process the obtained...

Knee orthotic devices are widely proposed by physicians and medical practitioners for preventive or therapeutic objectives in relation with their effects, usually known as to stabilize joint or restrict ranges of motion. The objectives of this work are to characterize the performance of knee orthoses using a Finite Element Model of a braced human leg. The interface properties of the model are c...

Some of the serious shortcomings of the standard brace for young patients with paralysis of the lower extremities are the lack of adjustability to accommodate growth and contractures, excessive weight, in¬ stability, difficulty in locking and unlocking, and the t ime required for donning and re¬ moval. The Parapodium (3) was designed in the effort to introduce a modular system that offers alter...

This paper will present a simple, low cost orthotic device designed to be used in underserved areas of the world that is capable of achieving the sequential correction of clubfoot in the newborn that is currently managed almost universally utilizing Ponseti casting. Despite the widely acknowledged efficacy of the serial casting developed by Dr. Ponseti in the 1950s, there are circumstances wher...

OBJECTIVE To compare the differential effect of custom orthoses on the lower extremity mechanics of a forefoot and rearfoot strike pattern. DESIGN Fifteen subjects ran with both a forefoot and a rearfoot strike pattern with and without orthoses. Lower extremity kinematic and kinetic variables were compared between strike pattern and orthotic conditions. BACKGROUND Foot orthoses have been sh...