Patent ID: 7507259

Claim:
A prosthetic foot comprising: a longitudinally extending foot keel having forefoot, midfoot and hindfoot portions; a resilient, upstanding, monolithically formed shank having a lower end connected to the midfoot portion of the foot keel and posteriorly terminating in a free end, the shank extending upwardly from the foot keel to a middle portion of the shank by way of an initially downward and anterior facing continuous convexly curved surface to form an ankle joint area of the prosthetic foot and extending upwardly in a substantially anterior facing convexly curvilinear manner above the ankle joint area to a substantially vertically oriented upper end to form a lower, prosthetic part of a leg for connection with a supporting structure on a person's leg stump, wherein the width of the resilient shank in the frontal plane of the prosthetic foot is greater than the thickness of the shank in the sagittal plane throughout the entire length of the shank such that both the ankle joint area and the prosthetic part of a leg formed by the shank are compressible and expandable in the longitudinal direction in response to the ground reaction force thereon during gait with the upper end of the shank moving posteriorly in plantarfiexion and anteriorly in dorsiflexion for storing and releasing energy to improve dynamic response of the prosthetic foot in gait; and a device extending between and connected to the upper and lower ends of the shank to dampen the motion and limit the extent of the upper end of the shank in at least one of compression and expansion.