Gait Evaluation in Patients with Transtibial Prosthesis using Force Platforms

For the study of total vertical ground reaction force, three Bertec force plates arranged in staggered configuration were used. Two parameters, movement direction of center of pressure during one step a peak of normalized ground reaction force, were designed to evaluate pathological prosthetic gait as a whole. Seven patients with right transtibial amputation using passive transtibial prostheses, and ten healthy subjects participated in the study. After calculating the parameters of each patient and healthy subject, the two-sample t-test was used to assess the significance of the differences between the results of the two groups. Also, the observed parameters were compared with each other. The results show that in all cases, the parameters described in patients are significantly different than in healthy subjects. New methods provide information on the gait with transtibial amputation as a whole.