I-Corps Teams: Aperture Prosthetic Technologies

University Of Texas At El Paso, El Paso TX

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact of this I-Corps project will be to increase quality of life for individuals with lower limb amputations by providing the best possible fit when using an artificial, or prosthetic, limb. The goal is to fundamentally improve the process by which medical professionals, known as prosthetists, fit their patients after they undergo an amputation. Thus, the proposed work is a novel assessment tool that has the potential to assist the service providers in the prosthetic industry in increasing profits by providing a more reliable, comfortable, and high-quality end product. This will be achieved by providing a device that quantifies the comfort at the interface between the residual and artificial limb, known as the socket, and thereby improves socket designs that enable amputees to return to their daily activities and have an improved quality of life. Participation in I-Corps will also develop the entrepreneurial, networking, and presentation skills of all the team members. The team's participation will also improve education for undergraduate students, as the team will incorporate elements of the I-Corps curriculum at their local university. This I-Corps project proposes to continue developing a sensor system able to provide quantitative socket fit quality information to prosthetists, enabling them to provide a better fitting prosthetic limb. Current comfort and fit assessment techniques are predominantly based on user feedback and the clinician?s experience. These less than precise techniques can often prove ineffective, leading to further user discontent due to a lack of quality fit. The comfort sensor system in development, therefore, is an embedded sensor array able to measure multiple comfort indicators in a clinical setting. These comfort indicators include: pressure distribution, level of humidity, temperature, and prosthetic alignment. The intended application of the proposed device is a liner fitted, much like socks or liners used by most amputees, between the artificial limb and the residual limb as an interface quality indicator. Its use also has applications for bedsore prevention and fitting of upper and lower-limb amputees. Completion of this I-Corps project will result in customer feedback that will help drive new directions and future iterations of this comfort sensor system and prosthetic socket design.