Can We Use Sensors to Make Your Socket More Comfortable?

Chakaveh Ahmadizadeh (SFU PhD Student), Dr. Carlo Menon (SFU Engineering) Lukas-Karim Merhi (BioInteractive Technologies), Jordan Pousett (Mechanical Engineer), SFU Design Team (Daniel Dixon, Vijay Parameswaran, Kirill Shestakov, Joshua Barrett & Tanner Frison) & Barber Prosthetics Clinic

Fun Fact: When you don’t wear enough socks, you experience more force on the distal parts of your limb. We proved that sensors could be used to measure this phenomenon.

When designing a prosthesis, clinicians work to optimize the pressure distribution within the socket so that the wearer has maximum comfort and function. Many patients have altered sensation in their limbs and have a hard time giving feedback on where they are experiencing pressure within the socket.  This project looked at designing a prototype technology that could be used to map the pressure within a socket. We also conducted a market analysis with a wide range of stakeholders to explore how this technology could best integrate into the current treatment processes. 

We took what we learnt from this first phase and looked at what we could do with this technology. Socks are one tool that patients have to adjust their own socket pressures and improve their comfort. We also explored if parts of this technology could be used to give our patients feedback about how many socks they should wear for the best socket comfort and pressure distribution. A summary of our preliminary findings can be found here: Applied Sciences | Free Full-Text | Towards Management of Residual Limb Volume: Monitoring the Prosthetic Interface Pressure to Detect Volume Fluctuations—A Feasibility Study | HTML (mdpi.com).