Investigating the Biomechanical Characteristics of Transtibal Stumps with Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Subjects with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) are the major parts in transtibial amputees. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference on the material properties of soft tissues and biomechanical performance between the DM and non-DM subjects. There are two volunteers with transtibial amputation involved in this study. One is suffered from DM, the other is not. This study were executed within two major phased. Firstly, the stiffness of soft tissue at five regions of stump was received from the self-made force-displacement instrument. Then, the finite element models of the two subjects were established to simulate the biomechanics of transtibial prosthesis. From the results, the stiffness of non-DM subject is averagely 1.6 times higher than the DM subject. In the finite element analysis, the DM subject were presented the higher magnitudes at the maximum sliding distance, the interface stresses, Von Mises stress and Von Mises strain. It means the soft tissue of DM subjects with lower stiffness had higher chance to be broken. When manufacturing the prosthesis for DM subjects, the prosthesists should notice this invisible problem..KeywordsDiabetes Mellitustranstibial amputeeselastic modulusfinite element analysis