Development of the new prosthetic foot desined to make elderly amputee's walk safer

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop the new prosthetic foot, designed to make elderly amputees walk safer. The gait of elderly amputees is less stable than healthy elders due to amputation, but this new prosthetic foot improve there stability. By applying this device, accidents through prosthetic gait would be decreased In concrete, this new prosthetic foot contains two keels; medial flexible keel and lateral stiff keel. This design concept has been indicated from human foot, based on the analysis of human foot movement. This paper shows the result of the experiment with 5 elder amputees, to investigate the stability of this new prosthetic foot.