Joint Movement Assessment Applied to Unilateral Amputee Cycling

Cycling is a low-impact exercise that is beneficial to the health of amputees, and also has the potential to improve rehabilitation outcomes. However, due to a lack of understanding how to design effective prostheses for recreational cycling, amputees often rely on regular walking models, which have unoptimized mechanical moving parts that lead to reductions in power and ineffective training. Hence, we aim to compose manufacturing guidelines for cycling prostheses by understanding the cycling movements of intact and amputee cyclists. For this study, specially made orthoses were employed to simulate the use of prostheses on healthy participants. Subjects cycled on an ergometer at two resistance and cadence levels, and at two different points of attachment of the prosthetic foot to the pedal: orthosis middle (OM) and orthosis tip (OT), while one condition encompassed regular cycling without the orthosis. The participants’ cycling techniques were compared by tracking markers attached to bony landmarks in the sagittal plane using cameras and OpenCV software. The effectiveness of the proposed attachment positions was evaluated by comparing the biomechanical data calculated for the different conditions. Preliminary results demonstrate that the OT position is more kinematically similar to regular cycling.