Background

Therapeutic shoes and partial weight bearing regimes are used after foot surgery to prevent the operated region from excessive load. It remains unclear to which extent partial weight bearing reduces the plantar peak forces. Therefore, we investigated the correlation of weight bearing and plantar peak forces in commonly used therapeutic shoes.

Methods

Three different weight bearing regimes (20 kg, 40 kg, full weight) were investigated in 20 healthy volunteers. Sensor insoles were used to measure peak forces of the forefoot, midfoot, heel and the complete foot using four kind of shoes (bandage shoe, forefoot relief shoe, short walker and standard sneaker). Peak forces were compared between shoes using one-way ANOVA. The influence of partial weight bearing relative to the peak forces was examined by linear regression analysis.

Results

All therapeutic shoes reduced significantly peak forces of the fore- and midfoot when compared to the reference shoe; the largest reduction was achieved by the forefoot relief shoe (−70 % at forefoot). Weight load and the resulting peak force showed a positive linear correlation for all regions and shoe types. Partial weight bearing significantly reduced the forefoot’s force ratio compared to full weight bearing for all shoes except the forefoot relief shoe.

Conclusions

Partial weight bearing is a strong instrument to reduce plantar peak forces of the forefoot, additionally to the proven offloading effect of therapeutic shoes.

中文翻译：

---

使用三种不同类型的术后鞋，部分负重对足底峰值力的影响

背景

治疗鞋和部分负重制度在足部手术后使用，以防止手术区域过度负荷。目前尚不清楚部分负重在多大程度上降低了足底峰值力。因此，我们研究了常用治疗鞋的负重和足底峰值力的相关性。

方法

在 20 名健康志愿者中研究了三种不同的负重方案（20 公斤、40 公斤、全重）。使用传感器鞋垫测量四种鞋（绷带鞋、前足缓解鞋、短助行鞋和标准运动鞋）的前足、中足、足跟和整只脚的峰值力。使用单向方差分析比较鞋子之间的峰值力。通过线性回归分析检查部分负重对峰值力的影响。

结果

与参考鞋相比，所有治疗鞋都显着降低了前足和中足的峰值力；前脚减震鞋实现了最大的减少（前脚 -70%）。重量负荷和由此产生的峰值力对所有地区和鞋子类型均呈正线性相关。与全负重相比，部分负重显着降低了前脚的受力比，除了前脚缓解鞋。

结论

部分负重是减少前足足底峰值力的有力工具，此外还有治疗鞋已证明的卸载效果。