Analysis of variability in pylon transducer signals

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Prosthetics and Orthotics
• Gait Analysis

Background:

• Below-knee amputees often use Patellar Tendon Bearing (PTB) prostheses.
• Understanding the stance phase of gait is crucial for prosthetic design and function.
• Previous studies highlighted the need for more data to statistically support findings on gait loading.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify shape differences in loading information curves during the stance phase of gait.
• To develop a method for efficient data handling and storage for gait analysis.
• To enable objective comparisons of strides using extracted and combined signal features.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a pylon transducer to collect force and moment data during gait.
• Employed digital processing systems to analyze and modify transducer signals.
• Developed a feature extraction and statistical combination method for transducer signals.

Main Results:

• Successfully extracted significant features from pylon transducer signals.
• Combined extracted features for statistical analysis.
• Enabled objective comparison of gait strides for individual subjects.

Conclusions:

• The developed method efficiently handles large datasets from gait analysis.
• Feature extraction and combination allow for objective and statistically supported comparisons of gait patterns.
• This approach enhances the analysis of loading information in PTB prosthesis users.