Comprehensive gait characteristics on electromagnetic stance-control knee ankle foot orthosis in healthy individuals

Computer-controlled knee ankle foot orthosis (KAFO) has the potential to contribute to gait training and functional walking assistance by ensuring knee stability during stance while allowing knee flexion during swing; however, evidence regarding the gait characteristics associated with computer-controlled KAFO remains limited. This study comprehensively investigated gait using an electromagnetic stance-control KAFO from the perspectives of kinematics, kinetics, frontopolar cortex (FPC) activity, and subjective difficulty. Twenty healthy participants were evaluated under four walking conditions: walking without an orthosis (WO), KAFO with electromagnetic stance-control on (EKAFO-on), KAFO with electromagnetic stance-control off (EKAFO-off), and KAFO with the knee joint locked (EKAFO-lock).

Compared with EKAFO-lock, EKAFO-on demonstrated significantly greater peak knee flexion during swing (69.2 ± 8.7° vs. 15.7 ± 3.6°) and gait patterns that more closely resembled WO and EKAFO-off in terms of kinematics and kinetics. No clear differences in FPC activity were observed among the four walking conditions. Subjective difficulty, assessed using a seven-point Likert scale, was significantly higher in EKAFO-on (4.9) and EKAFO-lock (5.4) than in WO (1.1).

These findings suggest that electromagnetic stance-control KAFO enables gait patterns that more closely resemble walking without an orthosis; however, the higher perceived difficulty remains a challenge for clinical application. This work was supported by research grants from the Japanese Society of Prosthetics and Orthotics and the General Insurance Association of Japan. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of the data, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Department of Neurorehabilitation and Emotional Science, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-2-3, Minami-ku, Hiroshima, 734-8553, Japan Takeshi Imura, Tomoyuki Kurose & Susumu Urakawa Department of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences, Hiroshima Cosmopolitan University, Hiroshima, Japan Junpei Tanabe, Yuji Iwamoto & Munetsugu Kota Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan Division of Rehabilitation, Department of Clinical Practice and Support, Hiroshima University Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan Department of Biomechanics, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan Ryutaro Ikeda, Kento Kusuda & Makoto Takahashi The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

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To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Imura, T., Tanabe, J., Taki, S. et al. Comprehensive gait characteristics on electromagnetic stance-control knee ankle foot orthosis in healthy individuals.