OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of various orthotic treatments for patients with isolated medial compartment osteoarthritis. DESIGN Prospective cohort study with sequential interventions. SETTING University-affiliated hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS From December 2010 to November 2011, 10 patients with medial knee osteoarthritis were referred by orthopaedic surgeons for orthotic tre...

This phase 1 exploratory study aimed to establish proof of concept of the effects of dynamic elastomeric fabric orthoses (DEFOs) on the gait of children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy. Replicated single case experiments employing an ABA methodology were carried out on eight subjects (median age 5.5 years, range 3-13 years; 4 girls/boys) utilizing quantitative/qualitative data collection. ...

[Purpose] This study examined the impact of wearing a functional foot orthotic on the pelvic angle of young adults who have flatfoot. [Subjects and Methods] A total of 15 college students diagnosed with flatfoot were included in the study. Changes in the pelvic angle in the stance period during walking before and after orthotic use were measured using a VICON Motion System (VICON, Hansung, Kore...

Objective: Potential pain relief from foot pain can come from a shoe insert foot orthotic. This study assessed foot pressure distribution and balance in off the shelf foot orthotics versus a custom made foot orthotic compared to no orthotic. Methods: The subjects (8) were both men and women. The average age was 25.1 ± 2.8 years, the average weight was 68.8 ± 13.7 kg, and BMI 24.5 ± 6.4. Each pa...

Commercial lower limb prostheses or orthotics help patients achieve a normal life. However, patients who use such aids need prolonged training to achieve a normal gait, and their fatigability increases. To improve patient comfort, this study proposed a method of predicting gait angle using neural networks and EMG signals. Experimental results using our method show that the absolute average erro...

The goal of this study was to investigate clinically relevant biomechanical conditions relating to the setup and alignment of knee-ankle-foot orthoses and the influence of these conditions on knee extension moments and orthotic stance control during gait. Knee moments were collected using an instrumented gait laboratory and concurrently a load transducer embedded at the knee-ankle-foot orthosis...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to determine the orthotic and therapeutic effects of daily community applied FES to the ankle dorsiflexors in a randomized controlled trial. We hypothesized that children receiving the eight-week FES treatment would demonstrate orthotic and therapeutic effects in gait and spasticity as well as better community mobility and balance skills compared to cont...

A dual-channel orthotic electrical stimulator was designed for daily use at home by plegic and paretic patients who had completed a hospital rehabilitation program. With two independent channels, two muscle groups can be stimulated in chosen sequences. A microcomputer accommodates the stimulation sequences to the gait cadence of the patient for the stance and swing phase separately.

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) facilitates ambulatory function after paralysis by electrically activating the muscles of the lower extremities. The Odstock Dropped Foot Stimulator (ODFS, Odstock, UK) called ODFS Pace, was used for heel-switch triggered FES-assisted walking. The ODFS is recommended as an intervention for neurologically impaired gait in the Royal College of Physicians (U...

STUDY DESIGN Repeated-measures analysis of variance. OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of 2 different orthotic posting designs on first metatarsophalangeal (first MTP) joint kinematics during gait. BACKGROUND Common orthotic designs used to control abnormal pronation incorporate the use of a medial post in the forefoot and/or rearfoot locations. Although this design may favorably alter rearfo...