The primary Radii Gadgets know-how trial socket (left), definitive socket (center) and full prosthetic limb (proper). Credit score: Dr. Jenny Bramley / Radii Gadgets Ltd.
Researchers have developed a brand new, data-driven means of becoming prosthetic legs that would result in better-fitting prosthetics, in much less time and at a decrease value.
The know-how was developed by Radii Gadgets and the College of Southampton, and the outcomes of an NHS trial have been printed in JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Expertise.
The research exhibits that below-the-knee prosthetic limbs designed utilizing the brand new strategy had been as snug on common as these created by extremely expert prosthetists, however with extra constant outcomes. Crucially, the brand new technique generates a fundamental design immediately.
Discovering the suitable match
The workforce behind the software program hope that data-driven socket designs—the connection between the individual and their prosthetic—will cut back the time, variety of iterations and variety of appointments it takes to reach at a prosthetic limb the affected person is snug with. This may not solely enhance sufferers’ expertise, however may additionally assist to clear ready lists.
Prosthetic sockets are customized to ensure the prosthetic is snug, practical, and protected to stroll on. The socket bears the individual’s entire physique weight and dynamic forces when strolling, so it should be rigorously balanced to distribute stress with out damaging limb tissue or creating discomfort.
Historically, a prosthetist makes a plaster solid of the leg and reshapes it to provide a socket which achieves the suitable steadiness, producing trial variations earlier than selecting a definitive one. At this time, many prosthetists use CAD (computer-aided design) software program in an analogous means. Importantly, this creates a digital document of the design course of, which the workforce had been in a position to make the most of.
Utilizing knowledge to reach at a customized design
Radii Gadgets Ltd, a spin-out firm from the College of Southampton, developed software program that pulls on knowledge from earlier prosthetic socket designs to generate suggestions for essentially the most snug socket form utilizing a 3D scan of the affected person’s residual limb.
Dr. Joshua Steer, founder and CEO of Radii Gadgets and a co-author of the research, explains, “By analyzing a whole lot of earlier prosthetic designs, we have been in a position to determine traits between completely different affected person traits, resembling the form and measurement of the residual limb, and profitable socket shapes.
“We can then scan a new patient’s residual limb and generate a personalized design recommendation based on features that have been successful for similar patients in the past.”
To check the effectiveness of the data-driven socket designs, the workforce carried out a research with sufferers from three NHS prosthetic rehabilitation facilities. Seventeen sufferers got a trial socket designed by a prosthetist and one designed utilizing the brand new technique. They had been then requested to check the consolation of the sockets, giving them a rating out of ten, and interviewed about their expertise of socket becoming.
The research discovered there was no distinction within the consolation scores on common, and fewer variation in consolation within the data-driven socket designs. A number of members most popular the match of the data-driven socket design when requested for suggestions, and had it was their definitive prosthetic.
Prosthetists utilizing the data-driven design software program. Credit score: Radii Gadgets Ltd.
Working with prosthetists
The design suggestions aren’t meant for use on their very own in medical follow. As a substitute, the workforce envisions prosthetists working with the know-how to additional improve the affected person expertise.
Alex Dickinson, Professor of Prosthetics Engineering on the College of Southampton, helped to develop the brand new technique and the proof base behind it. He mentioned, “3D scans can inform us lots in regards to the form of the residual limb from the skin, however they do not inform us what’s going on below the pores and skin. Solely a extremely expert prosthetist can determine issues like bone spurs and neuromas, and know methods to tweak designs to keep away from inflicting ache or injury at these delicate areas.
“We developed the data-driven socket design approach to save prosthetists’ time by giving them a solid base to work from so they can use their expertise where it is most valuable, in making precise adaptations tailored to their patients’ specific needs. The method effectively helps prosthetists to learn from each other.”
Practically 100 individuals have now had a prosthetic leg designed this fashion, throughout a number of facilities within the UK and the U.S..
The challenge workforce included physiotherapists, well being scientists, and software program engineers.
Maggie Donovan-Corridor, Professor of Psychology in Prosthetics and Orthotics on the College of Southampton and co-author of the research, mentioned, “This research was designed to check the ‘worst-case’ use of data-driven socket designs, with no extra enter from prosthetists.
“The fact they performed so well in these circumstances is both surprising and encouraging, but the real value of this tool is to give the prosthetist a starting design quickly, meaning they can spend much more of their time working with their patient on perfecting the more complex, personalized aspects of the design. This is what prosthetists spend years learning and is most crucial to their patients’ experience.”
The ultimate stage of this research is now underway, the place the software program interface is being developed with clinicians to supply them with the best option to incorporate data-driven socket designs into their follow.
Extra data:
Proof-Generated Sockets for Transtibial Prosthetic Limbs In contrast With Standard Laptop-Aided Designs: A A number of-Strategies Examine From the Affected person’s Perspective, JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Applied sciences (2025). DOI: 10.2196/69962
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Knowledge-driven designs of prosthetic legs supply a quicker, extra customized strategy (2025, August 21)
retrieved 21 August 2025
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