Patent ID: 8317874

Claim:
An orthopaedic having an orthopaedic fluid damper comprising: (a) a displacement chamber formed in a housing, (b) a piston mounted in the displacement chamber, (c) a fluid reservoir for a fluid, (d) a backflow line which connects the displacement chamber to the fluid reservoir, (e) a valve which can assume an opening position and a closing position, in which the valve is operative to at least partially close the backflow line, (f) a joint which has a first limb and a second limb, the first limb being connected to the piston, (g) a bar attached at a proximal end to the first limb of the joint at a point of axial rotation and resiliently attached at a distal end to the second limb so as to allow only axial movement of the second limb with respect to the bar, the housing being connected to the distal end of the bar, and (h) a force sensing device for detecting a joint force (F B ) acting on the joint, which is designed in order to bring the valve into the closing position when the joint force (F B ) overshoots a preset threshold value.