TUTORIAL
How to Measure a Patient with a footscan Plate
3 min
In this tutorial, you’ll learn the steps for measuring patients with footscan plates.
Prerequisites
Description of the different steps
- In your database, click 'Add' to add a new subject. You can also select a subject from your database and click on 'Record' or 'Open' to continue the measurement or analysis with an existing subject.
- Add the subject information in the open fields. First name, last name, and gender are mandatory fields; everything else is optional. The remarks field is used to insert the information from the sizing protocol. You can also use it to add subject-specific information, which can be helpful for your assessment afterward.
- After measuring your patient's shoe and foot size, you can start the assessment of your patient. Click 'Record' to prepare the measurement.
- Give a name to the session, e.g., walking, running, barefoot, etc.
- Fill in the patient's weight and shoe size and select or deselect the recording protocols you want for your patient. Click 'Next.'
- Although it is not used for the orthotic design, we usually start with the static measurement. It will give you a basic understanding of the patient's foot type and an idea of your patient's weight distribution while standing. Ensure the patient's pockets are empty and show them how to stand on the footscan plate. By default, the footscan plate's orientation is set so that the heel should be on the cable's side to get the feet straight on the screen. Push F5 on your keyboard or click the 'Take snapshot' button to take the scan. Click 'Next' to confirm or take a new scan by clicking the F5 button if you want a second attempt.
- Always click 'Next' when you are doing a recording protocol. Clicking ‘Skip' means you do not want to do the protocol, and the software will discard the scan you’ve made.
- To ensure the measurement runs as efficiently as possible, show the patient how you want them to walk or run over the footscan plate. They should walk as naturally as possible, at their average speed and looking straight forward.
- If you have a smaller plate, try to mark the starting position on both sides of the plate by doing some test runs with the patient. You can ask them to start on the footscan plate and take a couple of steps (preferably up to five steps) to one side and then to the other side (four steps) of the footscan plate. Mark the location where they ended; this will be the ideal starting position for the patient.
- Let the patient walk from one side of the room to the other, stopping, turning, and starting again. Remember, you want to measure their movement as naturally as possible, with their gait following the plate's direction. Once the subject is used to walking over the platform, usually after two times back and forth, you can start the recording by clicking 'Start recording' or clicking the F5 button again. End the recording once you have enough scans — we advise having at least five scans of each foot.
- Do you have additional scans? No problem, it will provide even more accurate values.
- Click 'Next' to continue to the analyzing screen. Your measurements are now saved in your database. Proceed to analyze the patient and provide feedback or click ‘Record again’ to start a new session if you want to do additional scans.
- Create a report to send it to the patient afterward.
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