# Development of a Novel Low-Cost Knee Brace to Quantify Human Knee Function During Dynamic Tasks: A Feasibility Study from the North-West Province

## TL;DR

A low-cost knee brace was developed to accurately track knee movements during daily activities, showing potential for use in rehabilitation and movement assessment.

## Contribution

The study introduces a feasible, low-cost instrumented knee brace validated against gold-standard motion analysis for dynamic tasks.

## Key findings

- The knee brace showed good validity (RMSE: 4.97–8.65°) for measuring knee joint angles during daily activities.
- The device's angular velocity measurements were very similar to gold-standard systems (mean bias: 0.59–9.52°·s−1).
- The brace is promising for non-clinical use but requires refinement for clinical applications.

## Abstract

What are the main findings?
A low-cost, instrumented knee brace can accurately measure knee joint angles during various daily activities.The device demonstrated good validity when compared with gold-standard motion analysis.

A low-cost, instrumented knee brace can accurately measure knee joint angles during various daily activities.

The device demonstrated good validity when compared with gold-standard motion analysis.

What are the implications of the main findings?
This brace could serve as a cost-effective, accessible tool for monitoring knee function in under-resourced or non-clinical settings.Further refinement could make it suitable for clinical use, supporting rehabilitation and movement assessment.

This brace could serve as a cost-effective, accessible tool for monitoring knee function in under-resourced or non-clinical settings.

Further refinement could make it suitable for clinical use, supporting rehabilitation and movement assessment.

Tracking knee joint movement during activities of daily living can have the potential to transform the rehabilitation and functional assessment of patients. The present study evaluated the validity of a low-cost, instrumented knee brace to determine whether it was appropriate for the monitoring and quantification of human knee function during five activity-of-daily-living (ADL) tasks including walking, inclined walking, stepping, sitting, and object manipulation. A sensor platform was designed to acquire sagittal plane knee data from 13 healthy participants across five different tasks and compared to gold-standard motion analysis. The brace showed good-to-excellent validity (RMSE: 4.97–8.65°), with differences in knee joint angles and angular velocities noted during various ADLs, specifically during early and late portions of a given movement. The results for instantaneous knee joint angles and angular velocities were very similar to those of the gold-standard system (mean bias: 0.59–9.52°·s−1), which may be applicable to everyday movement tasks, but may preclude analyses at a clinical level. Although the low-cost sensor platform shows promise an effective monitoring tool, it is not ready yet for a clinical application.