Diagnosis, interpretation, and subsequent management of ankle/foot pathology can be challenging to clinicians. A sensitive and specific physical examination is the strategy of choice for diagnosing selected ankle/foot injuries and additional diagnostic procedures, at considerable cost, may not provide additional information for clinical diagnosis and management. Because of a distal location in ...

BACKGROUND A powered knee-ankle-foot orthosis was developed to provide restriction of knee flexion during stance phase and active flexion and extension of the knee during swing phase of gait. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine its effect on the physiological cost index, walking speed and the distance walked in people with poliomyelitis compared to when walking with a knee-an...

This paper describes the development of a novel humanoid robot foot/ankle based on an orientation Parallel Kinematic Mechanism for intelligent and flexible control. With three identical Universal-Prismatic-Spherical prismatic-actuated limbs and a central Universal-Revolute passive limb, the PKM can perform three degrees of freedom rotation motions. In order to enable the humanoid robot safely t...

 Background: The transfer of the tibialis posterior tendon to the dorsum of foot can restore the function of the paralyzed dorsiflexor muscles of the foot and ankle. In order to reduce the wound complication in the insertion site of tendon to bone by a plantar knop we used a new method of fixation by an absorbable screw inserted dorsally. Methods: we performed this operation on 15 patients in...

BACKGROUND Ageing is associated with changes to the structure and function of the foot and ankle, and there is preliminary evidence that foot problems impair balance and increase the risk of falls. To explore this in more detail, we conducted a study to determine the relative contribution of several foot and ankle characteristics to performance on a range of balance and functional tests. METH...

Background: Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common inherited peripheral neuropathy and is associated with debilitating lower limb impairments and activity limitations. These impairments and activity limitations are potentially amendable to the prescription of orthoses, yet there is no universal, literature-based consensus to inform the decision making process of whether or not ort...

Introduction Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common genetic nerve disorder. The most prevalent form, CMT1A, is characterised by demyelinating neuropathy with progressive foot and ankle weakness, contractures and deformity. The wide range of foot/ankle manifestations in CMT1A complicates the assessment, diagnosis and therapy. We aimed to characterise foot and ankle strength, flexib...