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Unique partnership between University Hospitals’ Sports Medicine Team and the Cleveland Ballet focuses on performer preparation to avoid long-term problems. Efficient movement in ballet is easy to recognize, as every step the dancer takes flows seamlessly into the next, representing a perfect balance of muscular engagement and release.
By Douglas J. Guth
Latest Articles
Lower Extremity Noninvasive Vascular Testing Update
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CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE: Assessing Relaxed Standing Alignment and Posture in Autism Spectrum Disorder
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Rx for Diabetic Foot Ulcers: Optimize Your Communication With Patients
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Tech Takes On Diabetic Foot Ulcers
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Expert Commentary: Lymphedema of the Lower Extremities
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Patient Presentations Improve Communications, Increase Efficiency
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A Guide to Individualized Management of Foot Drop
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A Role for Arthroscopy in Managing Ankle Trauma?
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EXCERPT: Muscle Cramping During Exercise: Causes, Solutions, and Questions Remaining, Part 1
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Plantar fasciitis: A New Approach to An Old Problem
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Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome Remains a Challenge for Clinicians, Painful for Patients
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IS CHANGE ON THE HORIZON? Congress Proposes Reforms to the Stark Law
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Special Features
#1: Why Biomechanics Matter— What Are the Clinical and Athletics Ramifications
By Paul DeVita, PhD
#2: Why National Biomechanics Day Is Necessary and How It Will Help With #1
We all strive for healthy and happy lives, and many of us are fortunate to reach these goals. For these people, living in the physical world is not a challenge but a pleasure. The world does not overwhelm them; rather, it interacts and plays with them in enjoyable ways. To quote Walt Whitman, we “swim with the swimmers, wrestle with the wrestlers, walk in line with the firemen.” We experience the physical world and revel in it. Sadly, for others with movement limitations, sometimes only modest but sometimes severe, the physical world is a challenge or even a threat to their health and happiness. Their interactions with the world can be difficult or nearly impossible and can cause harm and pain. Through the experiment and the experience that each of us represents, we are biology in the physical world. We are biomechanics and biomechanics is us in motion.
Healthier, more physically gifted people use sound and effective biomechanics and negotiate well around the world and those less healthy and less gifted engage in imperfect and unsound biomechanics, perhaps simply taking too long to cross the street or perhaps even falling. Here, I make the point that biomechanics is first not a science or a tool, but is living beings in their world—tapping their toe, waving their hand, nodding their head. Through our biomechanical sensations we feel the world and through our biomechanical efforts we manipulate the world and move within it. In this case, the more we learn our personal biomechanics and our biomechanical capabilities, the more successfully we live in and experience the world, the more we overcome the world, and the less we are injured by it. We may not conceptualize ourselves in the world in this way, but we all seek to remain healthy, physically capable to the best of our abilities and so lead successful lives, to run with the runners, bowl with the bowlers, and tennis with the tennis-ers. Biomechanics is important because physically, it is us. Understanding how our bodies need to move properly can help us stay healthy longer, and as the population ages, that becomes a personal goal for each individual and a public health goal for society.
Cerebral Palsy (CP) represents the most common cause of motor disability in childhood with dysfunctional gait being one of the main problems. Early adoption of intervention programs adapted to the patient’s functional limitation and disability represent the current standard of care; therapeutic approaches include Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) for which the evidence shows they…
By Keith Loria
Use of negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is growing in the management of complex wounds as well as foot and ankle surgery. Researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and Wake Forest Baptist Health Center in North Carolina recently published a review of the evidence for NPWT in Foot & Ankle International. Their findings related to diabetic foot and neuropathic ulcers are excerpted here.
The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the Arthritis Foundation (AF) partnered to update and publish the 2019 ACR/AF Guideline for the Management of Osteoarthritis of the Hand, Hip and Knee. Last published in 2012, the updated guideline includes contributions to the literature since the last publication, and for the first time direct patient participation was incorporated.
By Laura Fonda Hochnadel
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that was first identified during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 is spreading from person to person in parts of the United States. Risk of infection with COVID-19 is higher for people who are close contacts of someone known to have COVID-19, for ...
Industry News & Updates
CGS, the Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Administrative Contractor (DME MAC) for Jurisdictions B and C, has introduced a modifier recommendation tool. The Advanced Modifier Engine was designed by CGS to assist suppliers in billing proper Healthcare Common Procedure Coding Systems (HCPCS) codes and modifier combinations.
Noridian, the Jurisdiction D Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Administrative Contractor (DME MAC) is conducting Targeted Probe and Educate (TPE) reviews for several specialties, among which are ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs), knee orthoses, and therapeutic shoes. The quarterly edit effectiveness results from October 2019 through…
A new line of wearable robotics developed by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and The City University of New York, City College (CCNY) could keep seniors on their feet longer. A prototype developed by Hao Su, PhD, an assistant professor at CCNY, and tested by Gerard Francisco, MD, and Shuo-Hsiu (James) Chang, PT, PhD, of…
Three graduates of the Prosthetic-Orthotic Technician Program at George Brown College, Ontario, Canada, have collaborated on a new children’s book, which was recently published and is available for sale on Amazon. Beau and His New AFO: A Children’s Guide to Ankle Foot Orthoses was written by Stephanie Blunt and illustrated by Amelia Levick and Katrina Whitmell.
MediKaki, a new shoe store “that is offering more than shoes,” recently opened in Penang, Malaysia. A team lead by Mogan Naidu, MD, will be screening and assessing patients and will also provide a range of affordable house shoes, depth shoes with custom orthotics, and full custom footwear. Naidu is a wound care provider, head of…
Custom Silicone Fabrication of San Francisco (CSF2), a company that develops custom silicone products for amputees and prosthetic solutions, has merged with Solati Health, Reno, NV. The addition of CSF2 will be the foundation of Solati’s interface liners and fabrication capabilities. The merger will enable Solati to expand its line of prosthetic products and technologies.
Sensor Medica USA has opened its first biomechanical clinic at its North American headquarters, located at 919 South Utah Ave, Idaho Falls, ID. The clinic uses the company’s own technology to offer complete gait and motion analysis, posturographic analysis for balance control, fall risk assessment, range of motion evaluation of all the articulations, a running lab using baropodometric and…
