An ISTAT census of 2001 says that in Italy 2.615.000 people have a disability, 1.200.000 have a motor disability. According to FIOTO, Italian Federation of Orthopedic Technicians, each year 10.000 are the new amputations of lower limb, 1.000 below the knee; 4.500 are old people.

The principal orthopedic centers are located in Bologna district and follow about 20.000 new users each year. Orthopedic laboratories not located in this area help 50% of disable people therefore a quote of 200.000 people is reached.

As displayed in the following figure the 80% of users are old people, which became amputee due to diabetes or vascular diseases, 10 % are adult people frequently victims of incendent at work, and the remaining 10% are young people often victims of crashes.

Basing on this analysis on amputees in Italy, the Roadrunnerfoot Engineering planned its decisions:

• the old users are the most numerous, and they need an high comfort and absorption, the elastic responce must not be quick and it must guarantee loading and hip forward movement;

• young and adult users, almost 20%, need a high mobility and high performance to live totally everyday activities.

Traumas of the spine with medullary lesions are very serious, deadly most of the time. Among survivior patiens 75% remain paraplegics, 25% tetraplegics.
Para and tetraplegia hit mostly young people under 30 year old: from a statistic made by "Fondazione per la ricerca sulle lesioni del midollo spinale", with the collaboration of important (Europe and international) rehabilitation centers, come out that 40% of these people are between 20 and 30 year old, and 35% under 20 year old.
The numbers of para and tetraplegic people are alarming: Italian Department of Health evaluates 60-70.000 people hitted by medullary lesions in Italy, 80% of them between 10 to 40 year old.
Epidemiology and scientific literature say that each year, in Italy, at least 1200 new cases of medullary lesions come out: that means that every day at least 3 people became para or tetraplegics.
This data is very close to European Community one.
From a GISEM' (Italian Group of epidemiologic study of medullary lesions) study, it is possible to look at several important datas. Medullary lesion origineted by a traumatic event (65% of total) are caused by:

Non traumatic causes (35% of total) are caused by:

Paraplegia

In Italy there are about 50.000 paraplegic people. The progresses in emergency therapy lead to a droop in paraplegic mortality from 60% to 4%, with an estimated life reduced to 10-15% from mean estimated life. There are serious rehabilitation problems anyway: we have often young people (mean age: 29.5 year old) who can't walk with other psicological, relating and physical problems (caridiovascular and respitarory).

Tetraplegia

In Italy about 20.000 people are tetraplegics. They have a medullary lesion in the higher section of the spine, and their age goes from 20 to 40 year old.