28 Jul 🥴Have you been told that your child with Cerebral Palsy needs to wear AFOs but your child is not tolerating them at all!
Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) are commonly recommended for children with Cerebral Palsy to correct their foot drop 🦵to reduce trips and falls, as well as to maintain a stretch in their calf muscles to allow for their feet to be flat on the ground for standing practice or to allow children to sit in wheelchairs with their feet flat on the foot plates.
3 Common reasons why AFOs “fail” and children refuse to wear them:
🦵1. One of the functions of AFOs is to keep the ankle at 90 degrees so that the feet can be placed flat on the ground when a child is sitting or standing. AFOs should be worn everyday, otherwise calf muscle contractures can happen where the child’s calf muscle shortens due to the spasticity in the muscle, resting posture of the ankle and foot, or growth in height over time. When contractures happen, AFOs will no longer fit a child’s ankle and foot.
🦵2. AFOs can be fixed or hinged, which means that a child’s ankle will be either fixed at 90 degrees or can move by 5 degrees. For children who are able to walk and able to move from sitting to crawling, to squatting to play, to standing up and walking, keeping their ankles fixed with AFOs will limit their ability to move as their desire. Furthermore, walking with AFOs tends to be a stomping high knee walking pattern instead of the natural heel strike, foot flat, push off walking pattern.
🦵3. AFOs are customised to fit each child, however, sometimes the AFOs are not well made and they don’t fit well causing pressure sores and even ulcers when worn. As a result, the child refuses to wear them.
So if your child is refusing to wear their AFOs, it could be due to the above 3 reasons, and perhaps it would be better to look at other alternatives. To find out more about alternative orthotics for your child with Cerebral Palsy, ring My Favourite Physio 📱on (02) 9790 4233 or DM us @myfavouritephysio to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists today.
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