Introduction A unilateral transfemoral amputation (TFA) has a major impact on function. A leg-length discrepancy is the primary structural change, accompanied by the loss of lower-limb muscle volume and function. Prostheses can help individuals with a TFA to regain function, but such individuals still do not reach the functional level of unimpaired peers and exhibit gait deviations. This study gives insight into the causality between residual limb strength and gait deviations in individuals with a TFA. Methods A convenient sample of 13 male individuals with a TFA (38.0 ± 12.6y; 179.7cm ± 6.5cm; 82.9kg ± 12.4kg) was recruited for this study. One participant with TFA was excluded, as he differed from the rest of the cohort, in residual limb length and the use of walking aids. A cohort of 18 unimpaired subjects served as a reference group (REF; nine females; 44y ± 13y; 174cm ± 9cm; 71kg ± 12kg). All participants underwent a conventional clinical gait analysis using a marker based 3D motion capture system and force platforms. Kinematics and kinetics were determined utilizing standard modelling methods. All subjects underwent a strength test, using a custom-made device to determine isometric moments of the hip joint in abduction, adduction, extension, and flexion. Peak values for maximum isometric moments for each movement direction and selected kinematic and kinetic values were derived from the results. Differences between subjects with TFA and unimpaired were compared using a Mann-Whitney U Test and associations between groups by Spearman's rank correlation.

The results suggest that the higher percentages of Beninese women affected by back pain and by severe back pain is related to the longer hours worked and more strenuous physical work performed.

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In this paper, a new method is presented to study the feasibility of the pose and the position estimation of bone structures using a low-dose radiographic system, the entrepreneurial operating system (designed by EOS-Imaging Company). This method is based on a 2-D-3-D registration of EOS bi-planar X-ray images with an EOS 3-D reconstruction. This technique is relevant to such an application thanks to the EOS ability to simultaneously make acquisitions of frontal and sagittal radiographs, and also to produce a 3-D surface reconstruction with its attached software. In this paper, the pose and position of a bone in radiographs is estimated through the link between 3-D and 2-D data. This relationship is established in the frequency domain using the Fourier central slice theorem. To estimate the pose and position of the bone, we define a distance between the 3-D data and the radiographs, and use an iterative optimization approach to converge toward the best estimation. In this paper, we give the mathematical details of the method. We also show the experimental protocol and the results, which validate our approach.