Background: The use of knee-ankle-foot orthoses with drop locked knee joints produces some limitations for walking in subjects with quadriceps muscle weakness. The development of stance control orthoses can potentially improve their functionality.
Objectives: The aim of this review was to compare the evidence of the effect of stance control orthoses to knee-ankle-foot orthoses with drop locked knee joints in improving kinematic variables and energy efficiency of walking by subjects with quadriceps muscle weakness caused by different pathologies.
Study design: Literature review.
Methods: Based on selected keywords and their composition, a search was performed in Google Scholar, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and ISI Web of Knowledge databases. In total, 18 articles were finally chosen for review.
Results: The results of this study demonstrated that this type of orthosis can improve the walking parameters of subjects with quadriceps muscle weakness and spinal cord injury patients when compared to a locked knee-ankle-foot orthosis.
Conclusion: There is evidence to show that stance control orthosis designs improve the gait kinematics but not energetic of knee-ankle-foot orthosis users. Development of new designs of stance control orthoses to provide a more normal pattern of walking is still required.
Clinical relevance: Stance control orthoses are a new generation of orthotic intervention that could potentially be significant in assisting to improve the gait kinematics by knee-ankle-foot orthosis users.
Keywords: Stance control knee joint; energy consumption; gait analysis; knee–ankle–foot orthoses.
© The International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics 2015.