• Wei Chen, Xiaoyu Liu, Fang Pu, Yang Yang, Lizhen Wang, Hong Liu, and Yubo Fan.
• Key Laboratory of Rehabilitation Technical Aids, Ministry of Civil Affair, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems, Beihang University National Research Center for Rehabilitation Technical Aids Rokab Pedorthic Center, Beijing, P.R. China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2017 Oct 1; 96 (40): e8186e8186.

BackgroundA novel splint, the assisting ankle-foot orthoses (AFO), was developed to provide adjustable sustained stretching to improve conservative treatment for equinus deformities in children with cerebral palsy (CP). The treatment effect was validated by follow-up visits.MethodsThis study involved subjects between 2 and 12 years old, including 28 CP children treated with splint-assisted AFO correction, 30 CP children treated with static AFO correction, and 30 normal children with typical development (TD). Quantitative pedobarographic measurements were taken to evaluate the effect of splint-assisted AFO correction. The heel/forefoot ratio was introduced to indicate the degree of the equinus deformity during treatment.ResultsThe results showed that the heel/forefoot ratios were 1.41 ± 0.26 for the TD children; 0.65 ± 0.41, 1.02 ± 0.44, and 1.24 ± 0.51 for the splint-assisted AFO correction before and after 6-month and 12-month treatments; 0.59 ± 0.37, 0.67 ± 0.44, and 0.66 ± 0.42 for the static AFO correction before and after 6-month and 12-month treatments.ConclusionsThis study suggests that correction with the adjustable splint-assisted AFO is an effective treatment for equinus deformity in CP Children.

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