Pictured here is a side-by-side comparison of the “Prominence” prosthetic foot (left) and a natural foot in stiletto heels. (Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins University senior design team)
The “Prominence” is designed by Johns Hopkins University students, in collaboration with a Johns Hopkins physician and outside prosthetics experts, to be worn with heels up to 4 inches high.
The students, recent graduates from Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering, performed the work as a senior project.
In the two semesters they worked on the project, the students performed mathematical calculations on paper and tests on machines and people in order to balance the foot’s strength and flexibility, reliability and convenience, sturdiness, and lightness, according to a media release from Johns Hopkins University.
After a series of tests, the students designed a 28-layer carbon fiber footplate, then built a heel-adjustment mechanism with two interlocking aluminum disks that opens and closes with an attached lever at the ankle. For the ankle, they used an off-the-shelf hydraulic unit that enables a smooth gait and flexing at the sole.
Then, using four types of women’s shoes—including a gold 5 ½-inch stiletto—the team then tested the prosthetic foot on seven people. Three were amputees, and four were non-amputees but attached the foot to the bottom of a bulky boot, per the release.
Alexandra Capellini, a Johns Hopkins University junior who lost her right leg to bone cancer as a child, tried the foot with a flat shoe and liked it, the release states.
“I had a good time walking” with it, says Capellini, who majors in public health studies, in the release. “It felt stable. … An adjustable ankle is useful in contexts even beyond high heels. Ballet flats, sneakers, boots, and high heels especially, all vary in height, so an adjustable ankle opens up opportunities to wear a variety of shoes.”
Among the suggestions from the testers were to use a stiffer, longer toe, or to move the adjustment lever.
According to James K. Gilman—a physician and retired Army major general who is executive director of the Johns Hopkins Military and Veterans Health Institute and advisor to the students—in the release, it will take time to assess the commercial appeal and potential of the Prominence, including the question of whether anything the team created could qualify for a patent.
However, “I think the final prototype produced showed the way forward,” states Nathan Scott, a senior lecturer in the Whiting School’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, who advised the student group, per the release. “As usual, we just need to go around the design and prototyping loop one more time.”
[Source(s): Johns Hopkins University, Science Daily]
