Subject Specific Lower Limb Joint Mechanical Assessment for Indicative Range Operation of Active Aid Device on Abnormal Gait

Abstract

This study presents subject specific lower limb joint angular kinematic and dynamic analysis at time and frequency domain as well as joint mechanical work, power and dynamic stiffness assessment during normal gait, stiff knee gait and slow running for indicative range operation of personalized active gait aid device. Gait aid devices present increasing interest for the generalization of gait rehabilitation, as an answer to the growth demand of population with gait rehabilitation need, as well as the insufficient health care personnel. Nevertheless, the large costs and standardized equipment leave out many patients without gait rehabilitation, with the need for low cost, personalized gait rehabilitation equipment, based on subject-specific analysis. In vivo and noninvasive case study was assessed of a healthy male subject 70 kg mass and 1.86 m height on human gait lab. Reflective adhesive marks were applied at skin surface of lower limb selected anatomical points and images captured with eight 100 Hz camera Qualisys along with ground reaction forces and force moments acquired at 2000 Hz with two AMTI force plates during foot contact with the ground on normal gait (NG) at comfortable auto-selected velocity, stiff knee gait (SKG) with lower knee flexion and slow running (SR) at minimum run velocity on stiff knee condition. Inverse kinematics and dynamics were performed using AnyGait with TLEM model and lower limb joint angular signal analyzed. Indicative range operation from lower limb joint mechanical assessment were obtained at complementary domain for subject specific gait aid device selection and parametrization.