Hanger Ventures has announced an investment in Prosthetic Fit 360, a Washington-based company developing sensor technology that could bring a new level of objective measurement to one of the most important—and traditionally subjective—areas of prosthetic care: socket fit.
The investment, announced on August 17, 2026, will support the further development and evaluation of Limn Fit™, a sensor-based system designed to continuously measure how a residual limb moves within a prosthetic socket during everyday use.
For prosthetists across India, the Middle East and Africa, the technology points toward a broader shift in clinical practice: moving from socket fit being assessed mainly during appointments toward a model where clinicians can potentially understand what is happening between appointments and during real-world activity.
Measuring What Happens Inside the Socket
Prosthetic Fit 360 was founded by Conor Lanahan, PhD, and developed with support from CoMotion, the University of Washington’s innovation hub.
Limn Fit uses sensors incorporated into prosthetic sockets and liners to monitor the relationship between the residual limb and socket.
Rather than concentrating primarily on pressure, loading or activity levels, the technology measures relative movement between the limb and socket.
According to Hanger, the system can quantify six-degree-of-freedom movement and generate information relating to factors including:
- pistoning
- axial rotation
- suspension integrity
- changes associated with residual limb volume fluctuations
The signals are processed into clinically meaningful information that can be made available to both prosthetic users and clinicians.
That distinction is important.
A patient may report that a socket feels loose, unstable or uncomfortable, but reproducing exactly what happens during several hours of walking, work or recreational activity inside a clinic can be difficult.
Continuous monitoring potentially gives the prosthetist another source of evidence alongside patient feedback, visual examination and established clinical assessment.
Turning Patient Experience Into Data
Lanahan’s work has focused heavily on the gap between what patients experience outside the clinic and what prosthetists can objectively document.
University of Washington material describing Prosthetic Fit 360’s development highlights the aim of converting patient experiences into measurable information that clinicians can use for decision-making, outcome documentation and justification of ongoing prosthetic care.
This could become particularly relevant as prosthetic care increasingly moves toward measurable outcomes.
The socket remains one of the most individualised elements of a prosthesis. Even highly advanced knees, feet and other components can perform poorly if the interface between the residual limb and prosthesis is unstable or uncomfortable.
Yet socket fitting still depends substantially on the expertise of the prosthetist and communication with the patient.
Technologies such as Limn Fit are therefore unlikely to replace clinical judgement.
Instead, they could provide another layer of objective information to support it.
Hanger to Support Pilot Study
As part of the investment, Hanger will support a pilot study designed to evaluate both the clinical and economic value of Limn Fit.
The study is expected to examine whether continuous socket monitoring can help clinicians determine when modifications are actually necessary, reduce unnecessary follow-up appointments and improve clinical efficiency without compromising patient outcomes.
That operational element could prove almost as significant as the clinical technology itself.
Follow-up appointments are essential in prosthetic care, but not every patient requires intervention at the same frequency.
If remote or continuous monitoring can eventually help identify which patients require clinical attention—and which remain stable—prosthetic practices could potentially allocate their clinical capacity more effectively.
Why This Matters for IMEA CPOs
For the IMEA region, the potential implications extend beyond technology adoption in highly resourced clinics.
Large parts of India, the Middle East and Africa continue to face a fundamental problem: distance between the prosthetic user and the prosthetist.
Patients may travel significant distances for fitting or follow-up, while specialist prosthetic services are often concentrated in major cities.
In these environments, technology capable of generating meaningful information about socket performance outside the clinic could eventually support new care models.
A prosthetist might, for example, be able to identify evidence of increased pistoning or declining suspension before deciding whether a patient needs to travel for a face-to-face appointment.
It could also potentially support hub-and-spoke models where regional rehabilitation teams work with specialist prosthetists located elsewhere.
These applications will, of course, depend on clinical validation, affordability, regulatory approval, digital infrastructure and how effectively the technology integrates into normal prosthetic workflows.
But the direction is significant.
A Larger Move Toward Data-Driven Prosthetics
The prosthetics sector is becoming increasingly measurable.
Microprocessor knees already generate usage information. Activity monitors can quantify steps and mobility. Pressure systems can analyse loading. Digital scanning and CAD create reproducible records of socket geometry.
Socket interface monitoring could add another important dataset.
For prosthetists, this creates an opportunity but also a challenge.
More data is only valuable when it contributes to better decisions.
Successful technologies will therefore need to convert complex sensor signals into information that is understandable, clinically relevant and fast enough to use during everyday practice.
This appears to be central to Prosthetic Fit 360’s proposition.
Rather than simply collecting sensor information, Limn Fit is intended to translate limb-to-socket movement into metrics that can support decisions about fit and suspension.
From Art to Evidence—Without Losing the Art
Socket fitting has often been described as one of the areas of prosthetics where clinical experience and craftsmanship remain especially important.
That is unlikely to disappear.
A sensor cannot fully understand the patient’s lifestyle, goals, skin condition, expectations or perception of comfort.
But objective measurement could help prosthetists validate what they are seeing and what the patient is reporting.
The future of socket fitting may therefore not be a choice between clinical experience and data.
It may be the combination of both.
Hanger Ventures’ investment in Prosthetic Fit 360 is another indication that major organisations within O&P see value in that direction.
If continuous socket monitoring proves clinically useful and economically sustainable, technologies such as Limn Fit could eventually change not only how prosthetists evaluate socket fit, but also when patients need to return to the clinic and how evidence of successful prosthetic care is documented.
For a profession working to improve outcomes while managing growing patient numbers and limited clinical resources, that could become a particularly important development.
- Hanger Ventures announcement: https://corporate.hanger.com/news/2026/hanger-ventures-announces-investment-in-prosthetic-fit-360/
- Hanger Ventures: https://www.hanger.com/ventures
- University of Washington CoMotion – Conor Lanahan / Prosthetic Fit 360: https://comotion.uw.edu/team_members/conor-lanahan/
- University of Washington research on limb-to-prosthesis interface sensing: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/items/0a07f833-14c0-4803-aba9-f7d31aeaae4e