Active Knee Prosthesis Study for Improvement of Locomotion for Above Knee Amputees
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00771589. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
The Active Knee Prosthesis Will be Tested to Evaluate How Well it Improves the Gait Symmetry and Reduces the Metabolic Cost of an Amputee During Walking. The Prosthesis Will be Attached to the Socket of the Amputee.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
The purpose of this study is to develop a robust, low-power, stable, and light weight, active knee prosthetic device that can dramatically increase gait symmetry and walking economy of a transfemoral amputee during walking. State of the art prosthetic knees can be classified into three main classes: a) mechanically passive, b) variable-damping, and c) powered. Although the devices within each of these classes offer some advantages for above-knee amputees, their overall performance still presents some deficiencies. Artificial knees in the first two groups are predominantly damping devices, incapable of providing positive power output. Moreover, current powered prostheses are heavy and inefficient in their energy consumption, and/or they have a limited range of motion. To overcome such inadequacies, we have designed a novel prosthetic knee device with a biomimetic approach. The design of the active knee prosthesis is inspired by the antagonistic muscle anatomy of the human knee joint. This device mimics the synergistic muscle activity at the knee using a double series-elastic actuator (SEA) system that resembles the major mono-articular muscle groups that help flex and extend the knee joint. The agonist-antagonist SEA knee architecture will allow for precise force control of the knee joint, mimicking the spring-like behavior of the human knee, as well as providing adequate energy for forward progression of the body. The SEA has been previously developed and tested on legged robots. Also, the SEA has been successfully applied to the development of an actuated ankle-foot orthoses (AAFO) at MIT AI Lab. The mechanical architecture of the active knee prosthesis allows for independent engagement of flexion and extension tendon-like, series springs for the control of joint position and impedance, as well as net joint torque. Furthermore, this architecture permits a joint rotation with near zero friction, allowing the controller to take advantage of the passive dynamics of the system, thus, augmenting the overall energetic efficiency of the system.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT00771589
- Recruitment status
- Not listed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 10 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 50 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Apr 30, 2008
- Primary completion
- Dec 31, 2008
- Completion
- Mar 31, 2009
- Last update posted
- Oct 12, 2008
2008 – 2009
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 2
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 2
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biomechatronics Research Group, MIT | Cambridge | Massachusetts | 02142 | Recruiting |
| LIfestyle Prosthetics & Orthotics | North Andover | Massachusetts | 01845 | Recruiting |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00771589, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Oct 12, 2008 · Synced Sep 8, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT00771589 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.