Patient specific ankle-foot orthoses using rapid prototyping.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Orthotics and Prosthetics
• Digital Fabrication

Background:

• Current orthotic devices offer limited individualized comfort and function.
• Custom-fit orthoses are superior but laborious and time-intensive to produce manually.
• Qualitative adjustments to orthoses can compromise comfort and function.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a computerized technique for fabricating patient-specific orthotic devices.
• To improve comfort and allow for customized design modifications.
• To leverage 3D laser scanning and rapid prototyping for orthotic fabrication.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 3D laser scanning to capture patient-specific anatomical data.
• Employed Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software to manipulate surface data into an optimal form.
• Fabricated patient-specific orthoses using rapid prototyping machines.

Main Results:

• Successfully prototyped two ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) using the novel process.
• Gait analysis demonstrated that the rapid prototyped AFOs performed comparably to prefabricated designs.
• The fabricated orthoses provided a good anatomical fit.

Conclusions:

• Rapidly prototyped orthoses offer a good fit and comparable biomechanical function to prefabricated devices.
• The rapid fabrication process has the potential to decrease fabrication time and cost.
• This method allows for patient-specific design adjustments to meet individual needs.