IT Takes Steps to Help People With Joint Disorders
A new generation of devices to help people with joint disorders walk with ease and comfort are becoming a reality thanks to the work of GAIT, which is creating the world’s first ‘intelligent’ mechanical devices to support knee and ankle joints.
(PRWEB) December 12, 2004
A new generation of devices to help people with joint disorders walk with ease and comfort are becoming a reality thanks to the work of GAIT, which is creating the world’s first ‘intelligent’ mechanical devices to support knee and ankle joints.
GAIT is developing the most advanced leg supports designed to date, combining biomechanics with information technologies to produce more comfortable and effective devices that could benefit millions of people.
“The orthoses we are working with are apparatus that are attached to the leg to support the knees and ankles of people who have joint dysfunctions or lack muscle strength,” explains José Luis Pons at the Instituto de Automática Industrial in Spain. “Traditionally they [orthoses] are purely mechanical devices that provide rigidity to the leg when a patient is standing and allow it to flex when they are walking.”
Traditional devices, which rely exclusively on mechanical components, are often uncomfortable to wear and though they provide necessary support they do not necessarily allow patients to walk normally and with ease. GAIT is overcoming those problems by incorporating IT into orthoses. “The orthoses we are designing are unique because they contain electronic sensors and actuators to monitor joint movement and adapt the orthosis to it,” Pons says.
Each leg orthosis contains two sets of sensors, one to measure the force being exerted by the patientÂ’s movements on the joint and the other to determine the pressure being exerted on the patientÂ’s leg by the orthosis itself. The actuators use the data obtained from the sensors to set and reset the movement parameters of the mechanical components of the orthosis, thereby allowing the patient to move more naturally.
“Without the incorporation of sensors and actuators, traditional orthoses often cause people to walk abnormally resulting in higher energy use and greater discomfort, something that is a significant problem especially for the elderly,” Pons notes. “With this intelligent system patients should be able to move more naturally because the device can react to the activities they are performing, providing them with greater comfort regardless of whether they are sitting, standing, walking or going up stairs.”
Besides giving the patient support, the mechanical components of the orthosis are designed to assist movement by acting much like a healthy joint, returning the energy from the patientÂ’s stride to the leg and reducing the restrictions to movement. The sensors also monitor the comfort levels of the patient, a critically important issue given that orthoses are often attached to patientsÂ’ legs for long periods of time.
“Because orthotic devices are attached tightly around the joints it is important that they are set correctly to ensure maximum comfort and reduce the risk of friction which could cause ulcers and sores when the patient sweats or when the weather is hot and humid,” he explains.
All the data collected by the sensors are stored in microchips in the orthoses which can be accessed and controlled wirelessly by doctors allowing specialists to accurately monitor how well the patient is responding to treatment and to adjust the movement parameters of the device with high precision and therefore better adapt it to patientsÂ’ needs.
The partners have so far developed several prototypes of their intelligent orthoses and have tested them on healthy people. According to Pons, GAIT is planning to run clinical trials with around a dozen patients in Spain and The Netherlands from next March as one of the final steps toward developing a commercially available variant of the system.
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IST Results contact: Tara Morris, Tel: +32-2-2861985, tmorris @ gopa-cartermill. com
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