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Walking ability of individuals fitted with transfemoral bone-anchored prostheses: A comparative study of gait
Simone Ranaldi1, Alexandre Naaim2, Cristiano De Marchis3
1BioLab³ - Engineering Department, Roma TRE University, Rome, Lazio, Italy.
Objective:
This study presents the walking abilities of participants fitted with transfemoral bone-anchored prostheses using a total of 14 gait parameters.
Design:
Two-centre retrospective cross-sectional comparative study.
Setting:
Research facilities equipped with tridimensional motion capture systems.
Participants:
Two control arms included eight able-bodied participants arm (54 ± 9 years, 1.75 ± 0.07 m, 76 ± 7 kg) and nine participants fitted with transfemoral socket-suspended prostheses arm (59 ± 9 years, 1.73 ± 0.07 m, 80 ± 16 kg). The intervention arm included nine participants fitted with transfemoral bone-anchored prostheses arm (51 ± 13 years, 1.78 ± 0.09 m, 87.3 ± 16.1 kg).
Intervention:
Fitting of transfemoral bone-anchored prostheses.
Main Measures:
Comparisons were performed for two spatio-temporal, three spatial and nine temporal gait parameters.
Results:
The cadence and speed of walking were 107 ± 6 steps/min and 1.23 ± 0.19 m/s for the able-bodied participants arm, 88 ± 7 steps/min and 0.87 ± 0.17 m/s for the socket-suspended prosthesis arm, and 96 ± 6 steps/min and 1.03 ± 0.17 m/s for bone-anchored prosthesis arm, respectively. Able-bodied participants and bone-anchored prosthesis arms were comparable in age, height, and body mass index as well as cadence and speed of walking, but the able-bodied participant arm showed a swing phase 31% shorter. Bone-anchored and socket-suspended prostheses arms were comparable for age, height, mass, and body mass index as well as cadence and speed of walking, but the bone-anchored prosthesis arm showed a step width and duration of double support in seconds 65% and 41% shorter, respectively.
Conclusions:
Bone-anchored and socket-suspended prostheses restored equally well the gait parameters at a self-selected speed. This benchmark data provides new insights into the walking ability of individuals using transfemoral bionics bone-anchored prostheses.
