The Quantification of Orthotic interventions in Osteoarthritic Knee Instability (QOOKI)

Project Description
This project aims to develop and validate an unambiguous, objective measure to quantify and diagnose knee instability which can easily be collected in the clinic. We believe inertial measurement unit (IMU) technology to be most appropriate in this context. We shall focus on the OA population due to the prevalence of instability in this population, but the aim has a wider application to both otherwise healthy and TKA knees. To achieve the above aim, we shall affect knee kinematics using both soft and unloading knee braces to both validate the objective measure and to ascertain the effectiveness of each type of brace. In doing so, we will identify the characteristic knee signatures of those most likely to benefit from orthotic intervention. We also aim to disentangle the debate regarding whether an individual's subjective instability has a mechanical or proprioceptive-deficit cause by suitable adjustment of the braces enabling the clustering and categorising of participants into different groups (i.e. mechanical or neurological) based on our developed measure.