The Prosthetic Care Triad: Design. Record. Educate.
Prosthetic care has three participants who rarely share a common language: the designer who shapes the socket, the wearer who lives in it, and the conversation between them that determines whether the next adjustment helps. SOMA, STRIDE, and Prosthetic Atlas each serve one role — and together they close every gap in the triad.
Three people sit in every prosthetic care decision. The designer, who understands forces, materials, and geometry. The wearer, who understands mornings, stairs, and the walk home. And the conversation between them, which determines whether the next adjustment is based on evidence or on "it hurts sometimes, I think."
Each participant has a different blind spot. The designer cannot see the wearer’s full day. The wearer cannot articulate what the designer needs to hear. And the conversation lacks a shared vocabulary that bridges biomechanical precision and lived experience.
Three products. Three blind spots. One triad.
SOMA: the designer’s instrument
SOMA is a research and learning prototype that centres prosthetic design on lived experience rather than fitting mechanics. The methodology is three words: person → experience → design.
Three guided care journeys track synthetic users through daily scenarios with pressure in kPa, volume change, and reported discomfort across a full day. Seven research frontiers — sensory return, interface sensing, adaptive sockets, muscle interfaces, shared control, regional materials, and digital-twin modelling — explore what comes next. 3D inspection shows what a design is. 4D inspection shows what a design does over time.
The continuous care memory exports findings as PDF or Markdown, linking evidence to design decisions.
SOMA’s question: what should the next generation of prosthetic care look like?
STRIDE: the wearer’s ledger
STRIDE is a private digital notebook for prosthesis users. Four daily actions: describe the prosthesis, check in when the fit changes, keep photos and clinical advice, and compare the same activity between morning and evening.
Time-gated entries capture the variation that a single fitting appointment cannot see. The two-hour comparison reveals volume change, pressure shifts, and comfort patterns across a day. Photo annotation with localised discomfort markers creates a traceable evidence trail. Revocable single-issue case linking lets the wearer share one concern with the prosthetist without opening the entire record.
The 3D interactive explorer helps the wearer understand the anatomy — residual limb, liner, socket, suspension, pylon — with an Ottobock component library.
STRIDE’s question: what is actually happening between appointments?
Prosthetic Atlas: the shared vocabulary
Prosthetic Atlas is an independent educational reference. Three content pathways build the vocabulary that makes the conversation productive:
Motion — slow a stride and compare two knees on the same clock. See the mechanical differences that determine how walking feels. The wearer who can see stance phase, swing phase, and transition understands why the prosthetist asks about knee resistance.
Fit — understand why the morning feels different from the afternoon. Socket comfort changes across a day as volume fluctuates and the limb-liner interface shifts. The wearer who understands volume change arrives with a more useful observation than "it hurts later."
The Visit — the Brief Builder compiles goals, questions, and model notes into a printable appointment brief. The wearer walks in with structure. The prosthetist receives an organised starting point instead of compressed verbal recall.
Prosthetic Atlas’s question: do both sides of the conversation have the vocabulary to understand each other?
How the triad connects
Each product serves one participant. Together, they close every gap:
| Gap | Product | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| The designer cannot see the full day | SOMA | Day-long pressure, volume, and comfort data through guided care journeys |
| The wearer cannot articulate what matters | STRIDE | Structured documentation with time-gated entries, activity comparison, and photo evidence |
| The conversation lacks shared vocabulary | Prosthetic Atlas | Gait comparison, fit education, and a Brief Builder that organises the appointment |
SOMA gives the designer the day. STRIDE gives the wearer a voice. Prosthetic Atlas gives both a language.
No single product completes the picture. The designer with SOMA but without the wearer’s daily observations is designing from research alone. The wearer with STRIDE but without the vocabulary to describe what they’re feeling is documenting without communicating. The vocabulary from Prosthetic Atlas without the daily evidence from STRIDE is education without application.
The triad compounds because each product makes the other two more useful.
What none of them do
None of the three products diagnose, prescribe, or claim the prosthesis is safe to wear. SOMA uses synthetic examples with no hardware connected. STRIDE is a journaling tool. Prosthetic Atlas is an educational reference. Clinical decisions belong to the care team.
The boundary is deliberate. These are not clinical tools replacing clinical judgment. They are information tools ensuring that the clinical conversation starts with better information from both sides.
The prosthetic care triad within the health stack
The portfolio’s health stack is now six products:
- Healthcare Playbook — strategy for clinical AI deployment.
- VITAL — sandbox for pre-deployment workflow testing.
- MedConsult AI — clinical workflow in production.
- SOMA — prosthetic care research for the designer.
- STRIDE — prosthetic care records for the wearer.
- Prosthetic Atlas — prosthetic education for both.
The first three serve clinical AI. The last three serve prosthetic care. Design. Record. Educate.
All three products are live and free to use.
Enter the SOMA Studio → — the research prototype.
Open STRIDE → — the personal notebook.
Open Prosthetic Atlas → — the educational reference.
Richard Leclézio
Enterprise Transformation & AI Delivery Leader