Bob
I am interested in you saying that material is irrelevant. Have you
assessed the mechanical properties of soft verse hard materials - both
short and long term. As I mentioned previously, research backs up the
point that EVA changes its properties over repeated cycles.
My point is that if a soft device is prescribed to effect a clinical
outcome, if the device does not stay 'soft', then how can we make
assumptions on how the device worked.
The idea behind this design of orthoses is that the GRF are different
during the differnt phases of gait, so to make an orthoses that
mimics/matches these variables seems like common sense.
I do agree with your comment re. a generic objective measure. This was one
of the main reasons for this posting.
One of the key objections I have to a lot of the research done on FFO's is
that the research will not actually assess whether the device is doing
what it should be e.g. if the paper is assessing the occurence of foot
ulceration in patients treated with TCI's via the ability of orthoses to
control peak pressure , it must show that the devices are actually doing
this before any comments such as ' orthoses do not stop ulceration' can be
made.
David, the research will be totally indepandant and fully blinded
Phil
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