Ankle Foot Orthosis Designs For Patient With Peroneal Nerve Damage: The Comparison Of Three Devices For Their Effectiveness In Rehabilitation

Abstract

The study involves the participation of a patient with peroneal nerve damage. The injury caused him to be unable to dorsiflex the ankle joint. His pathological gait symptoms were investigated using 2D gait motion test. The study evaluates the functionalities of three different ankle foot orthoses. Device 1 is immovable and allows no joint motions of the ankle. Device 2 allows plantarflexion and dorsiflexion motions of the ankle. Device 3 provides the same degree of freedom as device 2 with greater assistances for dorsiflexion. The first two devices are currently available in clinical practice. The goal of this research is to design and test a rehabilitation device that can help the patient to recover. Also, to determine that the device 3 is more effective than the other two. Gait motion data was recorded from two movement planes, frontal and sagittal. The results are composed of data from four different aspects: duration, cadence, range of motion, and sagittal plane gait motions. Also, there are four data collection phases, N1 to N4, for all four aspects of data. N1 is the stage before using the devices. N2 is after using the device 1, and N3 is after using the device 2, so on for N4.

The range of motion results show that after using the device 1 and 2, the dorsiflexion degree decreased by -3.97° and -1.49°, respectively. For device 3, it increased by 1.67°, which implies that the device 3 can enlarge the dorsiflexion range, as opposed to the other two. The cadence data are as following: 1455, 1399, 1373, and 1348 steps/km, in the order of N1 to N4. The data demonstrates a decreasing trend, which means that the walking performances are becoming more efficient, and they are the best when using device 3. Sagittal plane gait motion data show the raw performances of the dorsiflexing muscles without wearing the devices. The analysis compares the total left ankle dorsiflexion degrees. They are listed as the following in the order of N1 to N4: -124.27°, -167.00°, -107.69°, and -62.63°. The closer the values are to zero, the greater the dorsiflexion degree. N4 has the greatest dorsiflexion degree, which indicates that the device 3 is able to strengthen the dorsiflexors more effectively than the other two.