More stable stance through bone anchoring

A new case study from the Department of Biomedical Microengineering and BrainLinks-BrainTools suggests that osseointegration (anchoring of the prosthetic socket in the bone) can provide wearers of a prosthetic leg with a more stable stance.

The study investigated neuromuscular processes in the healthy leg of a leg amputee during standing. Data were recorded both before and after anchoring of the prosthesis stem in the femur, and the data were additionally compared with data from nine subjects without leg amputation. After osseointegration, the subject showed neuromuscular processes that were more similar to those of subjects with two healthy legs than before osseointegration. Consequently, the results indicate that osseointegration can lead to a more stable stance and thus possibly also to a more stable gait pattern when fitting a leg prosthesis. This would be another advantage of osseointegration compared to a conventional leg prosthesis, where the prosthesis socket has to be specifically adapted to the residual limb, where it also often leads to pressure pain or other problems.

Further studies with a higher number of participants are already planned to confirm these results.

The study is freely available here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07853890.2023.2255206