Hopkins University students have developed a prosthesis that allows women to put on studs again

Loss of limbs is a severe physical and psychological trauma, which not everyone can overcome the consequences of. The abandonment of many things that yesterday seemed commonplace becomes inevitable, and the quality of life inexorably decreases. In response to the wishes of the forced “eternal patients”, engineers in the field of prosthetics create new concepts, each day bringing the moment of returning to a person of lost opportunities. Of course, the level of such a return, the technologies and materials used determine the final cost of the prosthesis.

Given the severity of the problem, the range of proposals on the current market is quite large and covers almost all categories of the population - from the simplest prosthesis - “continuation” of the stump - to extra-class prostheses that have “learned” to feel touch , be controlled by the power of thought and even, apart from the main ones, a number of related functions that were not originally characteristic of the human hand or foot.

The vast majority of prostheses are made according to the individual characteristics of the patient. If we talk about prosthetic legs, they are designed to use shoes, most often quite simple, practical, as comfortable as possible. Virtually all solutions proposed for today are limited to a 2.5-inch heel. But there was no effective solution for women who lost their leg and wished not only to regain the opportunity to move on to “their” two, but also to look 100% full and to stiletto on heels. Perhaps due to the nature of the injury, this task seemed to the prosthetic engineers not only bold, but slightly reckless. And yet …
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The first who thought about returning women a pinch of female happiness, which was deprived of their fate, strangely enough, turned out to be students from Johns Hopkins University who decided to take on this responsible and complex mission, and at the same time defend their graduation project. In a press release of the team dated May 26, 2016, the guys reported that one of the driving factors was the situation in the American army, where cases of amputation among female veterans involved in combat operations in the past are not so rare. This figure is known and amounts to 2100 people. Of course, the problem is much broader, and its audience is not limited to such a narrow contingent of women who have chosen such an extreme lifestyle for themselves - thousands of women of different ages need prosthetics, both in the US and beyond.

The task that the students set for themselves is to create a prosthesis of such a design that would allow their hostess to confidently maintain balance and freely adjust the heel height without additional devices. Moreover, the guys decided to make the task as difficult as possible by developing a prosthesis that can withstand the weight of a full person, keeping it light and easily fit in elegant women's shoes with and without heels. While "... it took a human foot thousands of years of evolution to achieve a similar result, and we only had one year," says one of the team members Luke Brown. Of course, on key issues of the theory of prosthetics related to medical and some engineering aspects, it was not done without expert advice.

The prototype of the design, which young developers have already been able to demonstrate and test, provided for adjusting the position of the heel due to the movement of two interconnected aluminum discs. The guys note that 23 plates of durable titanium, which turned out to be rather heavy and 20-ply carbon fiber, were also tested as the starting material, which brilliantly solved the weight problem, but did not reach the strength of considerable weight and failed the stress tests. The adjustment process itself is carried out by means of a lever attached to the ankle. A hydraulic device is built into the design of the ankle, which makes the gait smooth and ensures that the sole is bent to the desired angle in an “automatic” mode.



The first prototype created was tested on four types of shoes, including shoes with a stiletto heel height of almost 14 centimeters. Four volunteers with amputated legs and three healthy people took part in the tests. For healthy people, the task turned out to be surprisingly difficult, since the length of the prosthesis was added to the natural and familiar leg length, with the result that the structure had a very stilted look.

The women participating in the experiment, who had lost a limb, had an exceptionally favorable impression on the prosthesis. The possibility of changing the height of the ankle, which allows people with disabilities with different height and weight, to select and feel confident in shoes of different styles and purposes, from ballet shoes with sneakers to heels up to 10 cm, was particularly noted.

According to the creators, the whole mechanism weighs only 1.4 kilograms and is able to withstand the weight of women in 113 kilograms. “I had a great walk,” said research participant Alexandra Capellini, a junior researcher at Hopkins University, who lost her leg as a result of bone cancer, shared her impressions: “I felt quite stable ... adjustable ankles are very comfortable. Ballet shoes, sneakers, boots and high heels especially, all differ in height, so adjustable ankles open up the possibility of wearing different shoes. " And in this sense, the prosthesis created by students is truly universal.

Valuable advice was also received on making some small but significant changes to the design. So after the end of a series of experimental tests, the participants agreed that it would be nice to lengthen somewhat the thumb of the prosthesis for stability and slightly shift the lever for adjusting the height of the artificial foot.

As noted by the students, until the moment when their prosthesis can act as a commercial product, there is still a lot of work to be done, but the main thing is that the concept, called “Protuberant” by students as a whole, turned out to be successful and was able to successfully complete a series of tough practical tests. Now the team is seriously considering the possibility of patenting its development.

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