Purpose
This paper aims to develop a customized orthosis for treating congenital talipes equinovarus (clubfoot) deformity. Complications from non-surgical treatment method such as Ponseti method leads to relapse/recurrence of the foot after treated.
Design/methodology/approach
An alternate approach for treating clubfoot deformity can be seen as a viable approach to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties. Customized orthosis is designed and developed for a subject affected with right clubfoot deformity through fused deposition modeling of additive manufacturing (AM) technology with ABS plastic as base material. A unique mechanism is used to develop customized orthosis for achieving rotation of the foot along the three axis and range of motions.
Findings
Developed orthosis is incorporated with a unique mechanism that can be rotated and arrested at the specified angle along the three principle ranges of motion of the foot. Overall weight of the developed customized orthosis achieved is about 284 g, which has a significant 25 per cent reduction in weight when compared to traditional Ponseti casting method. Overcoming the difficulties faced in Ponseti method, customized orthosis can be an alternative method for treating clubfoot.
Originality/value
Developed orthosis will be an alternative approach for treating clubfoot deformity, and it overcomes the drawbacks faced by Ponseti method.
Ratchet and pawl mechanism is used neither in many applications to provide precise locking of components either in linear nor in rotational directions. The number of locking positions depends on the total number of teeth on the ratchet. The objective is to increase the number of locking positions and thus minimizing the interval angle. For this objective to be fulfilled, spur gear is treated as ratchet, and meshing spur gear teeth is treated as pawl (named as lock). Due to the geometry of the spur gear teeth, the apparatus facilitates bidirectional locking. Spur gear permits 18 teeth in angular positions (P) achieved by a traditional ratchet mechanism with interval angles (A) of 20°. The locking of desired angle is impossible except for 18 positions of 20°, 40°, and 60°up to 360°. This study gives a better solution for increasing the number of locking position as well as decreasing the interval angles by introducing an innovative mechanism. Here, rearranging the position of the lock results in increasing the number of angular positions without increasing the number of teeth. Outcome of the paper is developed design which provides four times increase and reduction of angular positions. The locking position is derived by a mathematical formula, and simulation of the assembly was performed by using CAD software. Finally, the concept was proven by physical prototype fabricated through additive manufacturing technology and compared with traditional ratchet mechanism.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.