DR. HARDY OF ACADEMY FOOT AND ORTHOTIC CLINICS SHARES SOME INFORMATION ON 3D LASER FOOT SCANNING FOR ORTHOTICS

Orthotics can help you restore balance, improve sports performance, walk comfortably in high heels, and reduce or, better still, eliminate foot, back and leg pain. Orthotics are custom-made inserts that fit inside the shoe to decrease abnormal foot motion. Until recently, making orthotics required plaster casting – complete with pouring, casting, molding and construction. Now orthotics have gone digital with the use of 3-D laser optical casting. Both plaster and optical casting rely on the clinician holding the foot in the correct neutral position for accuracy. Both methods also provide an accurate three-dimensional contour of the foot. The difference is that in order to be 100% accurate, plaster casting requires total contact of the plaster with an immobilized foot, which can be difficult to achieve. Optical casting, on the other hand, gives a data sampling every four hundredths of an inch and as such, has been found to be more accurate than plaster. With optical scanning we check the scan to see if it corresponds to the biomechanical examination. If discrepancies are apparent, another scan be quickly taken with very little effort. Offering improved speed and accuracy in orthotic casting,