A Swedish knee-cage for stabilizing short below-knee stumps.

Abstract

Stump length is an important factor in attaining successful prosthetic rehabilitation in below-knee (BK) amputees. Stability of the stump-prosthesis complex is impaired in the case of a stump shorter than 10 cm. Thus, fitting a prosthesis to a BK amputee with a stump which is very short often requires the use of different prosthetic techniques. In this work, the authors suggest the use of a Swedish knee-cage attached to a conventional patellar-tendon-bearing prosthesis as an alternative solution in the case of a short BK stump. Objective evaluation was performed by an analysis of gait and the foot-ground reaction forces. The results obtained indicate an improvement in all the measured parameters resulting from the modified stump-prosthesis complex.