Investigating the effect of innovative storing-restoring hybrid passive ankle-foot orthosis on braking and propulsion impulse of walking in drop-foot patients: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

Background: Drop foot is a disorder that is characterized by reduction in speed and the patients’ inability to propel the paretic side, which disrupts the walking patterns. Ankle-foot orthoses (AFO) are widely prescribed in these patients in order to facilitate their leg propulsion and foot clearance during the swing phase. The purpose of this study was to use the correlation between effect of innovative AFO on braking and propulsion impulse and speed, in order to interpret the innovative AFO’s influence on the paretic and nonparetic side in drop-foot patients. Methods: Ten participants with drop foot walked at their self-selected speed, in order to collect the kinetic and kinematic data. The anteroposterior ground reaction force (GRF) components were extracted from the decomposition method with an innovative storing-restoring hybrid passive AFO and compared with baseline shoes only for both paretic and nonparetic sides. Results: There is a strong correlation between the innovative AFO speed and the anteroposterior component of GRF. After that, correlation was found between anteroposterior GRF and the storing-restoring hybrid passive AFO in comparison with baseline shoes only in both the paretic and nonparetic sides. Conclusions: This study demonstrated a strong correlation during walking between speed and the propulsion and braking impulses of the anteroposterior component of GRF on both sides. Level of Evidence: Level II.