A Novel Approach for Customized Prosthetic Socket Design

Abstract

The manufacturing of limb prosthesis socket that is comfortable for the amputee depends greatly on prosthetic practitioner’s knowledge of socket biomechanics and skill. It involves multistage manual corrections depending upon the clinical condition of the patient’s residual limb which may be affected by shrinkage or possible damage of plaster of paris (PoP) mold. The current work describes a novel process simplified through digitization, it integrates conventional PoP processes, reverse engineering (RE), and additive manufacturing (AM) technologies to design and develop a socket. The stereolithography (STL) file generated from the scan data was modeled on a fused deposition modeling (FDM) based AM. Its fitment was assessed with the help of INSPECTPLUS and GEOMAGIC reverse engineering tools. This approach takes the guess work out of prosthetic practitioner’s job, ensures better fitment, and shortens the total fabrication time leading to improved patient satisfaction. The proposed method is a part of the ongoing research and it will offer maximum comfort on demand to the patients through digitization.

A personalised prosthetic liner with embedded sensor technology: a case study

“…On the contrary, the integration on and into the socket wall has the main disadvantage of requiring an ad hoc socket design, which involves a considerable amount of skilled prosthetist manual work, which is expensive and time consuming [12]. Reverse engineering, computer aided design (CAD/ CAM) and 3D printing techniques are beginning to be applied in the design and manufacturing of prosthetic sockets and could overcome these limitations [13][14][15][16][17][18]. However, further research is still required to improve the structural integrity of 3D printed sockets.…”

Comparative study of the circumferential and volumetric analysis between conventional casting and three-dimensional scanning methods for transtibial socket: A preliminary study

“…Hence, the sockets in this study are only considered as satisfactory in terms of socket circumferential profile. 16 As shown in Table 1, the mean percentage of circumference difference (between bioscanner scanned image and residuum) is 2.9%, whereas that of POP cast is 1.2%. It was also discovered that the bioscanner made a higher error in casting procedure compared to the POP bandage casting technique.…”

“…Hence, the sockets in this study are only considered as satisfactory in terms of socket circumferential profile. 16…”

3D printed medicines: A new branch of digital healthcare

“…This induces mechanical stress on the cells of the fractured bones, reducing their healing duration by up to 38%. Moreover, FDM has been widely used to design patient-specific medical devices, including prosthetics (Nayak et al, 2016) and implants (Janusz et The balance between stiffness and brittleness of a filament is critical for printing (Korte and Quodbach, 2018b). This is mainly because excessive stiffness will prevent filaments from being properly bent onto spools and limit their use.…”