Asymmetry in people with transtibial and transfemoral amputation for the activities of daily living - a review

Asymmetry between the prosthetic and the intact leg may cause discomfort and seriously deteriorate people's quality of life. It is important to know the current status of asymmetry involved in the recent leg prosthetics so that efforts will be made to minimise it. In this paper, 31 articles that focus on the asymmetry in people with unilateral transtibial and transfemoral amputation were screened using PRISMA. The articles were further reviewed and computed for the symmetry index. The results revealed the presence of a high level of asymmetry during various activities performed. The level of asymmetry decreases with the activities associated with increasing speed. The microprocessor-controlled prosthetics have lesser asymmetry as compared to the non-microprocessor-controlled. The recent prosthetics were not fully effective in minimising the asymmetry, thus, more advanced research is needed in the design of prosthetics, by taking into consideration the varied nature of daily activities.