C-Leg Wins Compact-Impact Award
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA December 5, 2003—Otto Bock Health Care’s C-Leg® recently won the TKNY Compact-Impact for Body Award, “Where Form and Function Meet.”
TKNY, which conceives, develops and makes technology available to the public, brought together a panel of 10 experts for its fifth design show in New York City—this time for products that are shaped by their function, but also designed to increase the user’s comfort.
The Otto Bock Health Care C-Leg® is a prosthetic knee designed for lower limb amputees. The unique knee-shin system features on-board sensor technology, which reads the individual's every move by measuring forces at the ankle and angle of the knee 50 times a second. The C-Leg’s microprocessor then uses this information to guide the knee's hydraulic stance resistance as well as swing phase to ensure that the user's gait is as natural and efficient as possible. Thanks to this innovative technology, users can tackle stairs and uneven surfaces and even move at different speeds on flat terrain with greater confidence—walking without thinking about how to walk.
The Compact-Impact panelists included Kazuo Kawasaki, 3-D Design Director and Doctor of Medical Science, Nobumichi Tosa of Maywa Denki, live performance artist and “product demonstrators”, and the KnoWear, industrial design team from NY. Three products that seamlessly merge form and function were selected by each of the panelists and are exhibited on display at TKNY, in New York City.
Established in 1958, Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Otto Bock Health Care is the North and South American corporate headquarters of Otto Bock Healthcare, GmbH, based in Duderstadt, Germany. Otto Bock has more than 3,500 employees worldwide and produces over 20,000 types of prosthetic and orthotic components, rehabilitation products and technical plastics, and also provides information technology services.
