Alam Morshed, Choudhury Imtiaz Ahmed, Bin Mamat Azuddin
Manufacturing System Integration, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
ScientificWorldJournal. 2014;2014:867869. doi: 10.1155/2014/867869. Epub 2014 Apr 30.
Robotic technologies are being employed increasingly in the treatment of lower limb disabilities. Individuals suffering from stroke and other neurological disorders often experience inadequate dorsiflexion during swing phase of the gait cycle due to dorsiflexor muscle weakness. This type of pathological gait, mostly known as drop-foot gait, has two major complications, foot-slap during loading response and toe-drag during swing. Ankle foot orthotic (AFO) devices are mostly prescribed to resolve these complications. Existing AFOs are designed with or without articulated joint with various motion control elements like springs, dampers, four-bar mechanism, series elastic actuator, and so forth. This paper examines various AFO designs for drop-foot, discusses the mechanism, and identifies limitations and remaining design challenges. Along with two commercially available AFOs some designs possess promising prospective to be used as daily-wear device. However, the design and mechanism of AFO must ensure compactness, light weight, low noise, and high efficiency. These entailments present significant engineering challenges to develop a new design with wide consumer adoption.
机器人技术在下肢残疾治疗中的应用越来越广泛。中风和其他神经系统疾病患者在步态周期的摆动期常因背屈肌无力而出现背屈不足。这种类型的病理步态，大多被称为垂足步态，有两个主要并发症，即负重反应时的足拍击和摆动时的足趾拖地。踝关节足矫形器（AFO）装置大多用于解决这些并发症。现有的AFO设计有带或不带关节的，带有各种运动控制元件，如弹簧、阻尼器、四杆机构、串联弹性致动器等。本文研究了各种用于垂足的AFO设计，讨论了其机制，并确定了局限性和剩余的设计挑战。除了两种市售的AFO外，一些设计具有作为日常穿戴设备使用的广阔前景。然而，AFO的设计和机制必须确保紧凑、轻便、低噪音和高效率。这些要求对开发一种能被广泛消费者采用的新设计提出了重大的工程挑战。
