Responses of the Ankle to Changes in Shoe Rocker Radius

描述(申请人提供)：拟议的研究方向的目标是发现健壮的行走踝足系统的神经肌肉目标，并将其应用于更仿生的踝足假体和矫形器的设计。这些目标还将有助于评估现有的残疾或截肢踝足系统的辅助或替代装置。 身体健全的人会穿着带有不同半径摇杆的鞋子行走和站立，以检查脚踝(和身体的其他部分)对这些摇杆变化的反应。研究人员假设，研究对象在行走过程中会改变脚踝的运动，提供类似于脚踝、脚和鞋子系统的圆形有效摇杆形状(翻转形状)。在站立和前后摇摆时，脚踝-脚-鞋系统预计将提供一个平坦有效的摇杆来保持稳定性，这个平摇杆预计在所有鞋子条件下都保持不变。 如果研究人员的假设得到支持，可以开发出具有简单的脚踝锁定和解锁机制的假体，以便在站立活动(锁定的脚踝关节)时为使用者提供更稳定的基础，并允许脚踝-脚系统在行走时符合适当的翻转形状(解锁的脚踝关节)。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of the proposed line of research is to discover neuromuscular goals of the able-bodied ankle-foot system for walking and apply them toward the design of more biomimetic ankle-foot prostheses and orthoses. These goals will also assist in the evaluation of existing assistive or replacement devices for disabled or amputated ankle-foot systems. Able-bodied persons will walk and stand with shoes having rockers of different radii to examine the response of the ankle (and the rest of the body) to changes in these rockers. The investigators hypothesize that subjects in the study will change their ankle movements during walking in a way that provides a similar circular effective rocker shape (roll-over shape) of the ankle, foot, and shoe system. During standing and fore-aft swaying, the ankle-foot-shoe system is expected to provide a flat effective rocker for stability and this flat rocker is expected to remain the same with all shoe conditions. If the investigators' hypotheses are supported, prostheses with simple ankle locking and unlocking mechanisms could be developed to provide a more stable base to users during standing activities (locked ankle joint) and allowing the ankle-foot system to conform to an appropriate roll-over shape during walking (unlocked ankle joint).