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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jan 7.
Published in final edited form as: IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2011 Jun 23;19(4):411–419. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2011.2159018

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Average metabolic rate for Amputees (left) and Non-Amputees (right). Results for a Conventional passive prosthesis (dashed line) and shod Non-Amputee gait (dotted line) are shown for reference. We observed mixed metabolic results that were qualitatively similar in Amputee and Non-Amputee subjects across spring conditions. The Medium spring was significantly lower than Soft-PC spring in Amputees, and lower than the Hard spring in Non-Amputees subjects. Although metabolic energy expenditures were found to be of similar magnitudes in both Amputees and Non-Amputees, we consider this coincidental and attribute no special significance to the absolute comparison. There was no reason a priori to expect similar energetic magnitudes given differences between groups and experimental protocols. Qualitatively, Amputee subjects tended to expend more energy walking on the CESR foot than on the Conventional prosthesis, whereas Non-Amputees tended to expend less energy while walking on the CESR.