Search

Adult neuropathic diabetic patients with acquired foot deformities such as flat foot and Charcot feet often develop plantar foot ulceration, leading to extended hospital procedures. These ulcerations are attributed to elevated plantar contact pressures (Ctercteko, 1981). A recent preventative means is to fit the patient with a custom made ankle-foot-orthosis (AFO) designed to reduce these pressures. Although effective, AFOs have poor patient compliance due to their high weight.

Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) are used extensively for a variety of clinical issues, including the prevention of diabetic foot ulcers. One of the major causes of these ulcerations is the abnormally high plantar pressures present as a result of compromised foot function (Ctercteko, 1981). The AFO alleviates these abnormal pressures by redistributing them to low-pressure plantar regions. While effective, these AFOs are often not used by the patient due to weight and comfort issues. The first step in improving the basic AFO design is to understand the interaction between patient and AFO. Although studies examining and quantifying foot contact pressures in different foot wear under various conditions are innumerable, a very small number of studies measured pressures in a small portion of AFO-Foot contact surface and no studies have examined the foot contact pressures in an entire AFO. This could perhaps be due to the technical difficulties encountered when attempting to instrument an entire AFO surface. The purpose of our study was to determine all AFO-subject contact pressures during different daily activities such as walking, rising from and sitting on a chair, stair climbing and pivoting on the AFO. Real-time contact pressures were obtained for the entire AFO-subject area using the FSCAN pressure measurement system. These results would aid in the design of better AFOs by using these pressures as inputs to the design model.