There are about 1.12 million stroke patients in Japan, accounting for about 15% of the causes of elderly people aged 65 and over becoming eligible for long-term care. Patients who have suffered lower limb disabilities due to stroke often use ankle-foot-orthosis as a tool for daily living, and it has been reported that they improve balance and walking ability.
　On the other hand, some people drop out of using ankle-foot-orthosis, and some suffer secondary disabilities such as foot deformities as a result. Therefore, it is important to understand the needs of users, but there are few such reports in Japan, and even if there were, the evaluation factors are determined by experts and may not reflect other factors that users think should be evaluated.
　The purpose of this study was to interview users of ankle-foot-orthosis for stroke patients to investigate their needs and difficulties with the orthosis and orthosis provision services. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the users, and their thoughts were extracted by analyzing them with SCAT (Steps for Coding and Theorization).
　As a result, we were able to extract the benefits that stroke patients hope to gain by wearing ankle-foot-orthosis, areas where they would like to see improvements such as the structure of the orthosis, and concerns that they have while using the ankle-foot-orthosis. These are presented as elements that should be noted and improved when providing ankle-foot-orthosis.

Authors:
Kento Sato, Hokkaido University of Science and Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
Daiji Kobayashi, Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
I obtained my prosthetist and orthotist certifications at the Hokkaido Institute of Technology. After working in clinical practice, I teach prosthetics and orthotics as a faculty member at Hokkaido University of Science.

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark