17 Nov 🤔Did you know that there are other alternatives to AFOs for children with Cerebral Palsy Often times, children with Cerebral Palsy have increased muscle tone in their calf muscles which may cause their foot to point downwards so that the child tends to walk on their toes. It is traditionally recommended by Rehabilitation Team 👩‍⚕️in Children’s Hospitals that children with Cerebral Palsy should be wearing Ankle Foot Orthosis (AFOs) to support their foot and ankle. The purpose of AFOs is to maintain the ankle at 90 degrees so that the child can place their foot down flat on the ground to walk rather than be on their toes.

However, here at My Favourite Physio, our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists 🤓actually tend not to recommend AFOs for our clients with Cerebral Palsy. There are 3 reasons why we feel that AFOs are not the best options for children with Cerebral Palsy.

1. AFOs limit the range of movement at the ankle and knee joints, as they are often locked at 90 degrees and at most only allows 5 degrees of movement at the ankle. Children can have up to 25 degrees of movement in their ankle. 🦵

2. AFOs limit a child’s functional movement. When wearing AFOs, children tend to struggle to move their legs easily when trying to transition from sitting to lying, or lying to crawling or squat to stand or stand to squat. 🥺As a result, children do not learn the transitional movements that are important to develop their gross motor skills.

3. AFOs alter the child’s walking pattern. A child will tend to walk with a marching pattern as they have to lift their legs up higher to “march” with AFOs because of the limited ankle movement, instead of walking naturally with heel down, foot flat, then push off with their toes. 🚶‍♀️

Instead of AFOs, we recommend different customised orthosis to help a child with Cerebral Palsy achieve more natural ankle movements in functional positions.

So if you have a child with Cerebral Palsy struggling with AFOs, reach out to My Favourite Physio on (02) 9790 4233 or DM us @myfavouritephysio, to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists 🤓today!