An Integrated System for Measuring Limb Tissue Biomechanics

Abstract

The prosthetic socket is the mechanical interface between an amputated limb and the prosthetic leg. Nowadays conventional prosthetic manufacturing process is derived from an old and artisan technology which is passive, manual and require huge experience of prosthetist. Person with limb amputation experience huge discomfort because as the time passes their limb tissue changes its shape but the socket structure remains same. The load now may distribute on bone and hard tissues rather than soft tissues producing trouble for patients. The solution of this difficulty is in the field of digital prosthetic socket design which seeks to advance in CAD methodology for the manufacturing of sockets. In this report a technology is designed, built, and evaluated namely Fitprosthetics which is a single indenter device to measure the stiffness off an amputated tissue. Fit prosthetics has three parts. First one is mechanical designing, second is electronics and the third one is software. In this report, the mechanical description module covers the working mechanisms of Fitprosthetic, the electronics module covers all required electronic components and their assembly on PCB and the software module covers all the programs required to automate the whole process. Moreover, the values extracted from indenter system can be 3D plotted for biomechanical data from limb. This data assists in calculating and visualizing the tissue density and stiffness. This will assist the rapid manufacturing of prosthetics socket. The 3D printed socket fits more comfortably with amputated tissue, it is cheaper, takes very less time in manufacturing, and can be reproduced and can be manufactured multiple times