Well-fitting, comfortable, orthopedic footwear can be crucial for people with mild to severe foot/ankle deformities, traumatic injuries, pathophysiological disorders or other mechanical anomalies.  Properly fitting and functional orthopedic footwear can be the decisive factor between independent mobility or forced reliance on crutches or confinement to a wheelchair.

 

Transparent, flexible plastic "check shoes" can be an invaluable diagnostic and assessment tool, helping practitioners achieve the best possible footwear design for their patients.  Check shoes permit assessment of the degree of fit afforded by a given last design.  They enable visualization of the distribution and magnitude of pedal loading as revealed in pedal tissue blanching and blushing, as well as the amount of clearance afforded between the shoe and the foot in stress intolerant areas.

 

If check shoe fitting reveals modification of a given last design is necessary, the locations & magnitudes of the changes required can be traced directly on the check shoe and subsequently incorporated in the last design; either in a pedorthic cad/cam system or through conventional manual methods.  New check shoes can then be fabricated over the resulting modified lasts, the process of check shoe fittings, in situ evaluation & last design refinement, repeated until a well-fitting, functional, comfortable last design is achieved.

 

To produce check shoes that can support a patient's weight, with-out deforming more than definitive orthopedic shoes do and which have dorsa & sides with mechanical stiffness similar to those of orthopedic shoe upper (so donning and doffing is easily accomplished without risk of pinching, scratching or abraiding patient's pedal tissues) the flexible elastic thermoplastic DURAFLEX™ should be used.