Ankle push-off power plays an important role in healthy walking, contributing to center-of-mass acceleration, swing leg dynamics, and accounting for 45% of total leg power. The majority of existing passive energy storage and return prostheses for people with below-knee (transtibial) amputation are stiffer than the biological ankle, particularly at slower walking speeds. Additionally, passive devices provide insufficient levels of energy return and push-off power, negatively impacting biomechanics of gait.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor centuries scientists and technologists have sought artificial leg replacements that fully capture the versatility of their intact biological counterparts. However, biological gait requires coordinated volitional and reflexive motor control by complex afferent and efferent neural interplay, making its neuroprosthetic emulation challenging after limb amputation. Here we hypothesize that continuous neural control of a bionic limb can restore biomimetic gait after below-knee amputation when residual muscle afferents are augmented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Recurrent primary biliary cholangitis (rPBC) develops in approximately 30% of patients and negatively impacts graft and overall patient survival after liver transplantation (LT). There is a lack of data regarding the response rate to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) in rPBC. We evaluated a large, international, multi-center cohort to assess the performance of PBC scores in predicting the risk of graft and overall survival after LT in patients with rPBC.
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