Engineering Design, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Aug 30;20(17):6687. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20176687.
Patients who suffer from foot drop have impaired gait pattern functions and a higher risk of stumbling and falling. Therefore, they are usually treated with an assistive device, a so-called ankle-foot orthosis. The support of the orthosis should be in accordance with the motor requirements of the patient and should only be provided when needed, which is referred to as assistance-as-needed. Thus, in this publication, an approach is presented to determine the assistance-as-needed support using musculoskeletal human models. Based on motion capture recordings of multiple subjects performing gaits at different speeds, a parameter study varying the optimal force of a reserve actuator representing the ankle-foot orthosis added in the musculoskeletal simulation is conducted. The results show the dependency of the simulation results on the selected optimal force of the reserve actuator but with a possible identification of the assistance-as-needed support required from the ankle-foot orthosis. The required increase in support due to the increasing severity of foot drop is especially demonstrated with the approach. With this approach, information for the required support of individual subjects can be gathered, which can further be used to derive the design of an ankle-foot orthosis that optimally assists the subjects.
患有足下垂的患者步态模式功能受损，跌倒和绊倒的风险更高。因此，他们通常使用辅助设备（所谓的踝足矫形器）进行治疗。矫形器的支撑应符合患者的运动要求，并且仅在需要时提供，这被称为按需辅助。因此，在本出版物中，提出了一种使用肌肉骨骼人体模型来确定按需辅助支撑的方法。基于对多个受试者在不同速度下进行步态的运动捕捉记录，对肌肉骨骼模拟中添加的代表踝足矫形器的储备执行器的最佳力进行参数研究。结果表明，模拟结果取决于储备执行器的所选最佳力，但可能会确定踝足矫形器所需的按需辅助支撑。该方法特别展示了由于足下垂严重程度增加而导致的支撑需求增加。通过这种方法，可以收集有关个体受试者所需支撑的信息，这可以进一步用于得出最佳辅助受试者的踝足矫形器的设计。
