Powered prosthetic knees have the potential to restore lost function due to transfemoral amputation (TFA), but most of these devices have rarely been evaluated outside of the laboratory in a real-world environment. The goal of this effort is to gather community-based data from the less active (K2) TFA population to evaluate the efficacy of powered prosthetic knees for this group to ultimately fit the right device to the needs of each user population. The objective of the proposed study is to investigate the tradeoffs between two powered knees (one that is more powerful, but heavier and another that is lighter, but less powerful) and traditional mechanical knees to evaluate the effect of the different knees on patients’ mobility, safety, and wellbeing outside of the laboratory. To achieve our objective, the team of Liberating Technologies, Inc. and Hanger Clinic will perform a pilot longitudinal, randomized crossover, comparative effectiveness study to gather community-based measured, observed, and self-reported outcomes in (1) mobility, (2) safety, and (3) well-being. The outcomes include primary measures of step count (mobility), the Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale (safety), and the Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire-Wellbeing (well-being), as well as several secondary measures. The expected products resulting from this study are: (1) initial data to inform the evidence-based prescription and use of powered knee technologies for K2-level individuals with sound scientific data, (2) pilot data for a larger clinical trial across all K-levels, and (3) data to inform the design of future powered prosthetic knees. This proposed project aims to address the NIDILRR outcome domain of Health and Function.
