Knee Compartment Unloading Fixture – Industry Track

To alleviate knee pain from OA, current Knee OA bracing is designed to deliver 3 point loading to the leg to "unload" the medial/lateral knee condyles. Figure 1 demonstrates the knee compartment unloading via 3 point loading delivered from the Unloader One® knee brace:

In order to characterize the unloading effects from in-house and competitor bracing, a reliable benchtop knee surrogate fixture is needed. The objective of this project is to design a simple, robust, and reliable benchtop knee surrogate which measures the medial and lateral knee condyle forces between the femur and tibia. Project Scope:  Design benchtop Knee/leg surrogate which meets the following requirements: o Contains load measurement system which measures load in both medial and lateral compartments simultaneously. o Leg surrogate must have approximate anatomical exterior and tissue shore density of an average person. o Does not need to be anatomically accurate in terms of knee rotation. o Knee surrogate must be able to move from 0°-30° of flexion (90° is a bonus) o Gauge R&R on surrogate  BONUS: o Loading of the surrogate can be altered to simulate different user weights up to 300 lbs. o Different physiology shape with increased adipose tissue Project Mentor: Engineering Mentor: Jared Olivo, R&D Engineering, Ossur Americas jolivo@ossur.com Physician Mentor: To Be Announced once team is assigned

Team: