Evaluating the Gait of Lower Limb Prosthesis Users

Outcome assessments are vital in facilitating periodic, episodic and ongoing evaluation of persons with limb loss. There are many outcome measures used to quantify prosthetic fit, alignment, comfort, functionality and usability of lower limb prostheses. However, many measures are subjective, difficult to implement in a clinical setting and lack psychometric evaluation. This study used an immersive Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) virtual reality system with an instrumented spilt-belt treadmill and real time motion capture system as a research tool to evaluate and compare the gait of lower limb prosthesis users and non-amputees as a preliminary study to determine the effectiveness and appropriate use of outcome measures. The use of the CAREN system providing more real world scenarios such as ramps, inclines and unexpected inclines helped evaluate the hill assessment index (HAI) and the combined gait asymmetry metric (CGAM).