Influence of Prosthetic Sagittal Alignment on Trans-Tibial Amputee Gait and Compensating Pattern: A Case Study

This study relates the gait asymmetry, residual limb comfort, and energy cost during walking and identifies a compensating pattern for the trans-tibial amputees when the prostheses are misaligned. One male subject with a trans-tibial amputation volunteered for the study. The knee joint moments at the prosthetic side, the phase symmetry index, and the interface pressures were discussed under three sagittal alignment settings. The results show that the subject changes the knee joint moment, gait symmetry, and interface pressure with a misaligned prosthesis to improve his comfort and movement during walking. A high-quality liner reduces the gait sensitivity to misalignment and enhances the amputee's ability to compensate for misalignment. Since different people have different compensation patterns, more cases will be studied in future work.