Orthopedic knee brace with dynamically changing medial and lateral hinges

Inventors

Bledsoe, Brett Owen

Assignees

Breg Inc

Abstract

An orthopedic knee brace includes an upper medial upright; a lower medial upright; an upper lateral upright; a lower lateral upright; a medial hinge connected rotatably to the upper and lower medial uprights; a lateral hinge connected rotatably to the upper and lower lateral uprights; and wherein one of the medial and lateral hinges is configured such that its respective uprights rotate from a flexion to an extended relative positioning while striking a radially-decreasing arc, while the other of the medial and lateral hinges is configured such that its respective uprights rotate from a flexion to an extended relative positioning while striking a radially-increasing arc.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to an orthopedic knee brace configured as an osteoarthritis (OA) functional brace that applies side load in extension and removes side load in flexion by using a medial hinge and a lateral hinge that perform different inward and outward motions during movement from flexion to an extended relative positioning. The medial hinge is configured to pull its respective uprights inwardly while the uprights rotate and strike a radially-decreasing arc radius. The lateral hinge is configured to push its respective uprights outwardly while the uprights rotate and strike a radially-increasing arc radius.

The dynamically changing brace architecture includes upper medial upright and lower medial upright, together with upper lateral upright and lower lateral upright, with a medial hinge connected rotatably to the upper and lower medial uprights and a lateral hinge connected rotatably to the upper and lower lateral uprights. The described hinge mechanisms use four-bar hinges in which the medial and lateral sides respectively correspond to different four-bar linkage behaviors, including primary pin and support pin relationships relative to pivot locations and movement along arc radius behavior.

Alternative embodiments include polycentric hinge configurations in which one hinge is a first polycentric hinge and the other is a second, different polycentric hinge. Covered hinge linkages are described with cover plates having decreased-thickness areas to allow movement of a member of the four-bar linkage, and alternative hinge implementation options include contracting/shortening hinges and expanding/lengthening hinges, as well as combinations in which a hinge may extend or contract and other hinge components may be non-changing. An upright length adjustability is also described as an option for sliding adjustable upright length.

Claims Coverage

The patent includes multiple independent claim families in the provided set; the main claim coverage centers on an orthopedic knee brace with inventive medial and lateral hinge mechanisms that respectively pull uprights inwardly on a radially-decreasing arc radius and push uprights outwardly on a radially-increasing arc radius. The independent coverage is then narrowed by dependent features describing four-bar linkage implementations, polycentric hinge alternatives, and structural cover-plate arrangements.

Across the provided independent-claim set, the core inventive coverage lies in using different inward and outward hinge behaviors on the medial and lateral sides during flexion-to-extension rotation, with the medial side pull behavior associated with a radially-decreasing arc radius and the lateral side push behavior associated with a radially-increasing arc radius. Dependent claim refinements specify four-bar linkage pairing behavior (different four-bar linkages for medial and lateral), polycentric hinge alternatives (different polycentric hinges on the medial versus lateral hinge), and the use of cover plates with decreased-thickness areas to accommodate linkage member movement.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications