Foot of the Week – Episode 15 – Ankle Foot Orthosis Straps

In this Week’s blog, we talk about the use of the term orthotic and how it is more than just a word to describe the foot orthotic but also the AFO or Ankle Foot Orthosis. Also, we discuss AFO straps and how simple it can be to adjust your strap’s length by simply cutting excess material. We have many foot and ankle patients who don’t feel comfortable altering the brace strap but so long as you leave enough of the strap to fasten the brace to the foot and ankle, its fine to cut off the excess material to make the adjustment.

Video Transcript:

Hi, Ian here from Insightful Products. We’re gonna talk about terminology and strapping today. The terminology we want to talk about is AFO and it’s an acronym for Ankle Foot Orthosis. The word Orthosis means a brace for the ankle foot such as this. This is singular. Orthoses, with an e would be plural. Orthotic is actually an adjective, although the podiatry field has commandeered the term to mean a foot orthotic.

So, let’s talk about straps. We had a call the other day, somebody was afraid to cut the strap. We make our straps a little bit long so you can tailor them to the needs of the patient. For instance, right here we have the Step Smart brace, and you can see the strap is too long. So, let’s take the extra length and cut it off. The front strap here, the diagonal I-Strap was also made so you can cut it down. We sewed an extra little V right there. If it comes too far and overlaps the shoe, like that, there you simply cut away. There we go, that’s better.

For the Blaze design we also have an example of a strap that’s too long. You’ll notice that we have an extra bit of pile here. This is made so the patient can grab a hold of the strap even if it’s down fastened all the way. For instance, if this strap was like this, this edge can get really hard to grab a hold of. So, by putting this here it prevents that from sticking and gives the person a head start. So, this one is too long you can see so we’ll be simply just cutting off the part we don’t want. Replacing that little piece of pile. And now we’re off and going. That’s it for Foot of the Week. We’ll see you next week.