Résumé
In order to relieve patients suffering cartilage diseases and to facilitate the rehabilitation after an operation, it is necessary to unload the knee during daily living activities. Doctors used to prescribe knee orthosis to relieve their patients. These devices are based on various concepts to unload one or both knee's compartments by reducing or thresholding the tibiofemoral contact load or the abduction-adduction moment. Nevertheless, because it is difficult to measure articular forces in vivo, few studies evaluated such devices in terms of tibiofemoral contact force (TFCF) reduction. This leads us to question their effectiveness. This review presents the different methods to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of unloader braces in terms of tibiofemoral contact force reduction. This paper also lists some challenges in designing new efficient knee unloader braces.