Background

A transfemoral prosthesis is an artificial limb that replaces a leg missing above the knee. Transfemoral amputees can have a very difficult time regaining normal movement. In general, a transfemoral amputee must use approximately 80% more energy to walk than a person with two whole legs. India has a total of about 700,000 above knee prosthesis users. Majority of them can be classified as unilateral transfemoral amputees, i.e amputees with a single leg above knee amputation. Majority of them use passive prosthesis, i.e prosthesis with no battery powered mechanisms.

Passive prosthesis, while being cheap, has a lot of functional limitations. Active prosthesis brings in a lot of functional advancements to the field of prosthesis. It enables the amputee to walk faster, maintain balance, walk longer, etc.

The existing active prosthesis’ available in the market are highly expensive. Less than 1% of the amputees are capable of affording them. ProLeg aims to bridge the financial gap between active and passive prosthesis by bringing in high functionality at lower costs.