Advancements, Trends and Future Prospects of Lower Limb Prosthesis

• Main Authors: Muhammad Asif, Mohsin Islam Tiwana, Umar Shahbaz Khan, Waqar Shahid Qureshi, Javaid Iqbal, Nasir Rashid, Noman Naseer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2021-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Causes of amputation; lower limb amputation; lower limb prosthesis; design mechanisms; semi-active prosthesis; human gait cycle
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9447780/

Amputees with lower limb loss need special care during daily life activities to make the movement natural as before amputation. No such work exists covering the main aspects from causes of amputation to the psycho-social impact of the amputees after using the prosthetic device. This review presents for lower limb prosthesis; the study of lower limb amputation, design & development, control strategies & machine learning algorithms, the psycho-social impact of prosthetic users, and design trends in patents. Research articles, review papers, magazines, letters, study reports, surveys, and patents, etc. have been used as sources for this review. Traumatic injuries and different diseases have been found as common causes of amputation. Design & development section illustrates design mechanisms, the categories of passive, active, & semi-active prostheses, an overview of a subset of commercially available prosthetic devices, and 3D printing of the accessories. The control section provides information about control techniques, sensors used, machine learning algorithms, and their key outcomes. Quality of life, phantom limb pain, and psycho-social impact of prosthetic users have been summarized for different countries that are believed to attract the interest of the readers. We have also developed an open-source database “FAKH-50” for patents to emphasize the design trends and advancements in lower limb prostheses from 1970 to 2020. Overall trend analysis determined is in the descending order as the knee (48%) > ankle (28%) > foot (22%) > hip (2%) patents in the current version of our database. The forthcoming section highlights the challenges and prospects of the domain. A mutual observation demands the design of a bio-compatible, lightweight, and economic prosthesis to track the normal human gait by eliminating phantom limb pain. This will empower the amputees to live a quality life in society. This work may be beneficial for researchers, technicians, clinicians, and amputees.