The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutches and Adaptive Crutch Feet: An Innovative Approach to Mobility
The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutches and adaptive 3rd Foot crutch feet deliver a breakthrough in assistive mobility technology, providing ergonomic, anatomical, and functional benefits that support user comfort and independence. By rethinking crutch design to align with the body’s natural movement, kinetic chain alignment and structure, these crutches and adaptive crutch feet reduce joint stress, allowing users to move better, get stronger and walk longer and enjoy a more active lifestyle.
Unlike traditional crutches, the 3rd Foot Fabric topped Crutches are engineered to support the body without forcing the arms away from the sides or relying on the underarms and shoulder joints to bear the body's weight. This thoughtful approach addresses both anatomical and functional shortcomings of conventional crutches, leading to improved comfort, stability and kinetic chain alignment.
Ergonomic and Anatomical Advantages
Traditional crutches place considerable pressure on the underarms, shoulder joints, and the inner sides of the arms and chest—areas not designed to support the body's weight. These regions are vital passageways for nerves, blood, and lymph vessels, and prolonged pressure can result in pain, reduced mobility and potential injury. The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutches eliminates many of the issues from traditional crutches by allowing the underarms, inner sides of the arms and hands to rest naturally and comfortably along the side of the body, shifting the weight distribution toward the crutch feet, which are specifically proportioned and designed to mimic the movement, stability and balance of a human foot.
Patented Crutch Foot Design
The 3rd Foot crutch foot is not a tip or rocker foot bearing no resemblance to the human foot in terms of balance and stability like found on traditional crutches. The 3rd Foot Crutch foot Patented design enables the crutch foot to move, pivot, maintain balance, upright posture and a heel to toe walking gait like a foot, ensuring stability and postural alignment from the back to the front of the crutch foot. As a result, the spine, legs, and skeletal muscles that stabilize the shoulder joints and girdle remain properly and comfortably aligned, reducing pain and discomfort in the arms, sides and underarms.
Improved Stability and Balance
With traditional crutches, the shaft of the crutch often becomes horizontal causing the small flat anterior edge of the crutch’s foot and the user’s underarms and shoulders to maintain the body’s weight and balance. The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutches, with their larger ridged proportional foot surface area’s strategic orientation, distributes the body’s weight evenly over and onto the crutch foot. Keeping the body upright and stable when walking, backing up, and turning. The front portion of the crutch foot is proportioned like a foot allowing the user to keep more weight centralized over and on the crutch feet and off their shoulder joints and shoulder girdle.
Mechanical Advantage and Natural Movement
By keeping the arms comfortably placed close to and under the shoulder girdle during movement, users gain a mechanical advantage. This positioning prevents the wrists, arms, and shoulders from hyperextending forward, promoting a more natural and efficient movement pattern. The crutch design encourages the underarms to remain close to the body, supporting the natural orientation of the upper, mid and lower spine and the alignment of the scapula and shoulder girdle. The head and neck stay over the body. The natural curves of the spine (cervical, thoracic, lumbar) are maintained in relation to the pelvic and pectoral girdles keeping the body more stable and comfortable especially when one foot is off the ground.
Health and Functional Benefits of The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutch
· Reduces joint strain: Takes weight off the hip, knee, and ankle joints and distributes onto the crutch feet, minimizing wear and discomfort.
· Promotes upright posture: Enables users to walk with the head and cervical spine aligned and centered over the body.
· Supports natural a gait: Facilitates a heel-to-toe walking pattern, restoring or maintaining natural movement, especially when using two crutches.
· Prevents arm and shoulder impingement by keeping the inside of the arms and hands next to the body, reducing pain and nerve compression.
The Physiological Impact of Crutch Use on Recovery
Understanding Tissue Healing, Bone Adaptation, Neuroplasticity, and the Role of Rehabilitation
Crutches are a vital tool in the rehabilitation of patients recovering from injury or surgery, especially when weight-bearing on a limb is restricted. While crutch use is essential for protection and mobility, it triggers a cascade of physiological changes in the body. These changes affect soft tissues, bones, and the nervous system which can result in less-than-optimal outcomes.
Davis’s Law also known as the use it or lose it law states that soft tissues, such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments, adapt to the mechanical demands placed upon them. "Nature never wastes her time and material in maintaining a muscle or ligament at its original length when the distance between their points of origin and insertion is for any considerable time, without interruption, shortened," When tissues are subjected to regular tension, they maintain their strength, length and flexibility. Conversely, when immobilized or underused/overused and underloaded/overloaded—such as during crutch-assisted ambulation—these tissues may weaken, contract or shorten. Post-op, post-procedure and post-injury patients may be using crutches, non-weight-bearing and weight bearing for months. Resulting in changes to both the affected muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones and the non-affected as well as the entire body’s kinetic chain alignment
Crutch-Induced Changes in Soft Tissues
Using crutches shifts the load away from the injured limb, often resulting in reduced activity and tension in the immobilized area. This can lead to muscle atrophy, joint stiffness, and decreased flexibility. At the same time, the unaffected limb and the upper body, especially the shoulders, arms, the sides of the body and hands, experiences increased load, which may cause overuse injuries, muscle fatigue and contracture and even tendonitis.
Effects of Non-Weight-Bearing Due to Crutch Use
When a patient uses crutches and avoids weight-bearing on an injured limb, the bone in that limb receives less mechanical stimulation. This can result in decreased bone density and increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures. Meanwhile, the bones in the arms and shoulders may experience increased stress, sometimes leading to discomfort or injury and even bone structure modification-The SAID Principle.
Crutch-Induced Neural Changes
Using crutches alters normal walking patterns, leading to changes in neural circuits that control movement. While this adaptation helps patients maintain mobility, it can also result in compensatory habits that persist even after recovery, potentially affecting gait, core strength and balance.
When the body moves incorrectly, it increases stress on other joints and tissues, making them more susceptible to injury. Restoring balance and efficient movement patterns reduces this strain, creating a more resilient and stable body post-op and post-injury.
The 3rd Foot Fabric topped Crutch is designed and Patented to assist in all stages of recovery by helping to maintain balance, stability, the head aligned and centered over the body and a heel to toe walking gait when walking on two feet. By combining physiological principles for optimal recovery, The 3rd Foot Fabric topped Crutch minimizes complications, supports long-term function, and empowers patients throughout their recovery journey.
Conclusion
Crutches profoundly affect the body alignment, influencing tissue healing, bone remodeling, and neurological adaptation. The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutches help patients achieve safe, effective, and lasting outcomes crucial for a comprehensive recovery. Following an injury, the body often creates new, unnatural movement patterns to compensate for pain and weakness. The 3rd Foot Fabric topped Crutch design focuses on restoring more natural, efficient, and symmetrical movement throughout all stages of recovery.