A number of approaches have been attempted to address the treatment of acute odontoid fractures, spanning from conservative treatment with an external orthotic device to posterior C1-C2 arthrodesis or anterior screw fixation. The current report describes stabilisation of such fractures with a C1 supralaminar hook and a C2 pars interarticularis screw construct. Two patients with odontoid fractur...

Upper extremity motion in humans is complex and irregular. An orthosis designer cannot count on cyclic procedures or repetitions. When designing a bracing system for the upper limb, this complexity is challenging and therefore it is essential to know about the necessary torques, angular velocities and joint ranges. In this study, we took a closer look at tasks associated with daily living and d...

OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness of orthotic devices for the management of instability of the knee in adults with a neuromuscular disorder or central nervous system disorder. DESIGN A systematic review of primary studies. SETTING Community. PARTICIPANTS Adults with a neuromuscular disorder or central nervous system disorder and impaired walking ability due to instability of the knee...

BACKGROUND/AIM It is accepted that sports mouthguards decrease the incidence of dental injuries in athletes, but the value of oral orthotics in the prevention of concussion/mild traumatic brain injuries in footballers remains contentious. However, previous investigations have primarily studied non-customized mouthguards without dental/temporo-mandibular joint examinations of the subjects. There...

One of the challenges that any powered lower limb orthotic or prosthetic device must address for activities in the real world is its ability to recognize gait modes (level ground walking, stairs, ramps, etc.) and adapt to mode changes promptly. There are two critical aspects of this problem. First, the gait mode has to be recognized at the earliest possible time to prevent potential misfiring (...

The 1992 NIH Research Planning Conference on Prosthetic and Orthotic Research for the 21st Century (Childress, 1992) recognized that the field of prosthetics lacks theoretical understanding and empirical studies on learning to control an upper-extremity prosthesis. We have addressed this problem using a novel approach in which persons without amputations are required to perform or learn basic m...

Athletes often suffer from recurrent or chronic overuse symptoms of the lower extremities. During the office visit it is essential to analyse the patient's shoes, gait cycle, lower extremities and, especially, the talocrural, subtalar and more distal joints of the ankle and foot. The basic (clinical) biomechanical analysis can be supplemented by radiographs, treadmill and video analysis and mir...