Unlockable knee joint mechanism for powered gait orthosis |
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Authors: | Gyoosuk Kim Shinill Kang Sungjae Kang Jeicheong Ryu Museoung Mun and Kyunghoon Kim |
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Affiliation: | (1) School of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University, 262, Seongsanno, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 120-749;(2) Korea Orthopedic & Rehab. Eng. Center, 47-3, Gusan-dong, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, South Korea, 403-712 |
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Abstract: | Walking with the knee joint locked increases the amplitude of pelvic tilt and results in an unnatural gait. This paper introduces
a powered gait orthosis with a moveable knee joint designed to improve the gait speed of patients with spinal cord injury
(SCI). The unlockable knee joint powered gait orthosis (UKJ-PGO) uses a gas spring cylinder and a solenoid locking device
to enable flexion of the joint, while the rigidity of the hip-joint device is enhanced using air muscles. A gait analysis
was conducted to evaluate the performance of the UKJ-PGO, and the kinematic parameters obtained were compared with those of
a standard PGO. In the gait of SCI patients using the UKJ-PGO, the new knee-joint device enabled flexion during the swing
phase and showed a decrease in pelvic tilt compared with the standard PGO gait. As greater flexion was possible at the knee
joint, the duration of the stance phase substantially decreased to near to the normal value, and the duration of the swing
phase increased accordingly. In addition, the gait using the UKJ-PGO was faster than that with the standard PGO. |
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Keywords: | Unlockable knee joint Powered gait orthosis Spinal cord injury Paraplegic Air muscle Gait analysis |
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