Intermittent compression offloads foot and eases plantar fasciitis pain

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Biomechanics Magazine http://biomech.com July 2006

Intermittent compression offloads foot and eases plantar fasciitis

pain

By: R.

http://biomech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191601280

As conservative management remains the initial treatment of choice

for plantar fasciitis, finding a way to offload the foot at midstance

might be a way to relieve some of the pain. And if conservative

management is the starting place for treatment, prefabricated

orthoses are probably the starting place for conservative management.

A Mayo Clinic researcher compared a customizable prefab orthosis, the

1st Step by Wrymark, and a dynamic functional orthosis, the AirHeel

by Aircast, in a controlled study of 50 patients with PF, randomized

into two even groups.

The 1st Step can be customized for PF patients with prefab posting

materials. The AirHeel provides intermittent pneumatic compression to

areas affected by PF. Designed to treat Achilles tendinitis, the

device has aircells under the arch and at the Achilles tendon that

interact as the wearer walks.

PF duration for all participants was at least four but less than 12

weeks. Subjects were categorized by foot type (normal, pes planus,

pes cavus).

Subjects were evaluated at fitting and after 12 weeks. Increases in

foot contact area (compared with barefoot) was similar for both

groups, with a more than 25% increase seen with both devices (see

table).

In terms of force reduction, however, the AirHeel reduced force at

midstance by more than 20%, as opposed to the 1st Step, with which

the force increased by 1%. The study's author also reported that the

initial response of those patients with a higher initial pain score

was better with the AirHeel than the 1st Step.

This study was published in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics in

November.