Transfemoral Residual Limb Volume Change Due to Physical Activity

Abstract

In the state-of-the-art, only few studies analyzed volume changes in residual lower limbs. Most of them focused on transtibial amputees, while data on transfemoral ones are largely missing. This study aims at investigating how transfemoral stumps change over time. A measurement system based on a portable 3D optical scanning technique was used to measure volume fluctuations in 6 transfemoral amputees prior to and 20 min after physical activity. Such technique allowed to measure the stump volume once outside of the prosthetic socket. Investigating stump volume changes over time after prosthesis doffing is necessary to take into account this source of error during tests. Data show that volume fluctuations range from −1.25% to +3.09%. These values were enough to cause patient discomfort. This study highlights the need to properly characterize volume changes with the aim of designing more efficient socket solutions, based on such data.

This work was supported by the project MOTU (robotic prosthesis with sMart sOcket and bidirectional inTerface for lower limb ampUtees), funded by INAIL (https://www.santannapisa.it/en/institute/biorobotics/motu).