Stiffness control in posterior-type plastic ankle-foot orthoses: effect of ankle trimline. Part 1: A device for measuring ankle moment.

A device was developed to measure the dorsi- and plantar flexion moment of plastic ankle-foot orthoses when deflected. It is operated by manually controlling a lever which is used to apply a nearly static force. Various orthoses can be classified according to the characteristics of the correcting force measured by this device. Simplicity and high reproducibility are the major advantages. However, to obtain measurements approximating the characteristics of orthoses under wearing conditions its use is restricted to orthoses made of low-viscosity materials.