Abstract
Orthotic helps, especially the knee braces, are often used by both, doctors and patients. This trend responds to lifestyle changes, to technology improvements and also to wide offer of knee braces on the trade.
The main purpose of the use of these orthoses is to support the knee, set it right and immobilize it [Chew, 2007]. Both, manufacturers and researchers that are interested in knee orthoses mainly concentrate on the influence they have on the region of knee and on their efficiency in treatment and prevention of knee disorders or injuries.
Only a few studies have considered its influence on equilibrating the ongoing changes in the centre of gravity during standing or gait, or some of the dynamical parameters like COP (centre of pressure) process. Some previous studies dealt with the effect of artificial impulses (tape [O'Sullivan, 2008], ice [Nurse, 2001], prophylactic knee brace [Kaminski, 2006], knee sleeve [Chuang, 2007]) on stand and gait characteristics.
The main purpose of this intraindividual study is to experimentally verify the possible changes of plantar pressure distribution during the stance phase of gait in relation to the application of three types of knee-joint braces in healthy individual.