BACKGROUND/NEED
The WHO estimates that amongst the disabled people living in LMIC's the need for prostheses will have risen to 30 million by 2011. To address rehabilitation issues a plethora of legislation has been produced. Despite this, varied levels of service provision exist in LMIC's. Entitlement of access to rehabilitation services is emphasised in legislation. However, in countries where the gross national income is low; rehabilitation services are rarely prioritised as primary health care understandably takes precedence. Conversely, as primary health care initiatives achieve success, greater demand is created for rehabilitation services as more disabled people survive infancy. Therefore, more research is required to ; a) assess current models of service provision in LMIC's. and b) to develop high performance and low cost engineering solutions that enable adequate prosthetic intervention.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The aim of the project is to develop recycled carbon fibre based biomimetic prosthetic ankle-foot system which exhibits high-performance, durability, comfort as well as energy storage and release which is low cost and could potentially be fabricated in LMICs. This will involve a concerted effort in the key scientific areas of advanced composites, compliant active structures and components, full prosthetic system design and computational modelling, simulation, testing and validation, manufacturing to scale, as well as sustainable social enterprise development, functional outcome quantification, need assessment and prosthetic service provision in LMICs. All fundamental research components will be driven by the ultimate clinical and social needs and user centred design as identified, evaluated and quantified previously by a clinical team in collaboration with established partners in LMICs. These will address the needs of the core user groups who require rehabilitation and assistance to maintain independence of prosthetic users.
To realise a set of objectives are defined:
Determine the specific needs and perceptions of the target user groups for prosthetic feet systems.
Establish engineering specifications for the specific behaviour required for demanding environments to meet the identified needs of the target user group.
Design and develop targeted functional compliant materials to enable dynamic capability of high-performance prosthetic feet.
Develop product design specifications for the prosthetic foot, based on user engagement and feedback.
Design, fabricate and test a set of NFC components. This includes feet and adapters to connect the feet to the other prosthetic components i.e. the knee for trans femoral prosthesis and socket for below the knee prosthesis.
Evaluate prototype feet in the real world. i.e. UK, India, Rwanda and Malawi.
PROGRAMME AND METHODOLOGY
The work programme consists of eight interlinked work packages (P1-P6) which address, from the bottom up, the developmental pipeline from composite research and computational modelling to complete prototype prosthetic ankle-foot system and clinical validation.
P1.Need assessment and perceptions of the target user groups
P2.Mechanical characterisation of the identified natural fibre composites.
P3. Design and optimisation of the high-performance components.
P4. Mechanical testing
P5. Field trials
P6.Recommended pathways for production at scale.

Impact:
The direct beneficiaries of this work's outcomes are persons with a below the knee amputation.
In addition, a knowledge base in relation to advanced composites and computational modelling data base will be created benefiting, academia and industry.