CANFIT-PLUS™  FootWare Design

 

The assessment, designing and manufacturing of foot orthoses is implemented in 3 stages.

Assessment

After the initial assessment, the patient’s foot is ready for scanning. As with manual casting, the foot is positioned in subtalar neutral. One benefit of this system is that the patient's foot can also be controlled be holding the STJ or the forefoot to maintain neutrality (see following scan images).

Direct scanning of foot shape

For clinicians that do not have a scanner in their office (or work in various remote clinics), the foot can be casted in the conventional method by using the STS casting sock. This is a fast, clean and accurate method of capturing the foot shape. The casting sock is scanned in the same way as we would scan the foot directly. Since the STS sock has an even thickness, it can be accurately scanned using the outside contours of the sock. Contact us for more information on STS casting socks or visit our site for Casting Procedures with STS socks.

The clinician has the option to do the Computer Aided Designing personally or to have it done at our central fabrication facility.

Footware™ software assists the clinician in generating an orthotic mold for direct carving out of an EVA plate. Footware™ has a complete library of orthotics shapes which can be graded to the dimensions and contours of the foot. The library can be expanded so the clinician can encorporate their own designs and base shapes.

Footware™ has the modification tools to incorporate all of the conventional cast adjustments as well as the custom adaptations. The most common corrections and cast modifications can also be stored as overlays and recalled quickly to reduce designing time. Footware™ software also has the capacity to reverse the shape to increase consistancy, and to guard against poor foot positioning on scans or casts.

Footware™ software allows us to do the following standard modifications:

• arch fill
• back fill
• forefoot posting
• hindfoot posting
• increase metatarsal support
• add well for a metatarsal support
• create a deep heel cup
• make a heel spur accommodation
• create a sulcus pad

The total designing time for foot orthotics is approximately 10 to 15 minutes. After completion, an output file is created and sent to the central fabrication facility.

Manufacturing

Once the orthotic has been designed, the central fabrication facility generates a CNC output file that directs the movements of CNC milling machine.Orthoses are plated in a 30mm sheet of EVA (variable densities). The depth control function in the software allows us to control the overall thickness of the orthoses. The orthotics are ready for topsheets and final side and bottom modelling. The fininsh of the orthotic can be completed by the central fabrication facility (according to specifications) or by the attending clinician.

The Orthcam software can process about 2 1/2 pairs of full length, or 3-4 pair of sulcus length orthoses in one CNC job.