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Heel Cord Lengthening Assist Device

Designing a noninvasive device to correct tightened heel cords in youths, aiming for painless, lightweight, and adjustable features, avoiding the need for surgical or casting methods. Reach out to pediatric specialists for further research.

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Heel Cord Lengthening Assist Device

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  1. Heel Cord Lengthening Assist Device Presenters: Sarah Holloway Satyen Saraswat Advisor: Dr. Edward Glaser

  2. Objective The goal of this project is to design, build, and implement a device that can be used as a noninvasive technique to correct tightened heel cords in youths.

  3. Background • Cerebral Palsy • Spastic • Athetoid • Ataxic • Cerebral Diplegia • Spina Bifida (Myelomeningocele)

  4. Current Methods of Correction • Surgical • Z-plasty • White Slide Method • Serial Casting • Physical Therapy

  5. Current Problems • 64,000 z-plasty surgeries were done in 19981 • 16,640 of these surgeries were recurrents • Literature recommends that the procedure not to be done for age <7 • Age <5, 48% recurrence • Benefits of serial casts are lost within 6 months • Muscle loss due to cast

  6. Our Plan • Noninvasive brace to stretch the heel cord that can obey the following design wishes: • Painless • Lightweight • Non-restrictive to movement • Adjustable for foot/ankle size and degree of dorsiflexion

  7. Work Completed • Contacted pediatricians, pediatric physical therapists, a podiatrist, and an orthopaedic surgeon • Researched surgical and serial casting methods for design improvements and function • Determined ranges of foot/ankle sizes for our design • Preliminary brainstorming of different designs

  8. Future Work • Confirm our findings of required flexion angles needed to lengthen the tendon • Design various devices to brace the heel cord and allow for variable dorsiflexion angles • Comparison of our designs • Material analysis

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