Does the research study use accepted clinical terminology?
In the review of articles on transtibial alignment, failure to use commonly accepted clinical terminology, combined with poor writing and editing, made it difficult to determine how alignments had been perturbed in several of the studies. For example, the clinician should not have to mentally juxtapose graphs and tables to determine that the effect of a perturbation reported in the experiment as socket flexion was actually socket extension. Does the research reflect clinical practice? Most of the research studies I reviewed began with an “acceptable” alignment and then examined the effect of perturbations. In the clinic, such procedures are reversed; the clinician begins with a bench alignment and attempts to produce an “acceptable” alignment. No one has developed evidence that such symmetry exists and the direction of change does not matter, but greater fidelity to clinical practices would occur in studies that begin with bench alignments and progress toward acceptable alignments. The
