Glenn Klute, Ph.D.
VA Center of Excellence for Limb Loss Prevention and Prosthetic Engineering
"Comfortable and Adaptive Prosthetic Components for the Lower Limb Amputee"


ABSTRACT

Many lower limb amputees exhibit lack of endurance, non-symmetrical gait,
and are exposed to residual limb tissue injury while walking or running with
the aid of a prosthetic limb.  Simply put, artificial limbs are poor
substitutes for the real thing.

Our team of engineers and graduate students are working with physicians,
prosthetists, and patients to develop the bio-mimetic prosthetic limbs of
the future.  This overview of our research projects will include our
approaches to designing effective limb shock-absorbers, novel actuators for
generating propulsive forces during gait, and using heat transfer models to
design more comfortable prosthetic sockets.  Examples of prosthetic feet,
pylons, sockets and knees will be available for comparison.