Foot ulcers are one of the most important complications of diabetes, both in terms of the quality of life of patients and in terms of social care costs. The risk of developing diabetic foot ulcers can be reduced by early fitting of properly fitting orthopedic shoes. At the moment, customization of the footwear is often not done on the basis of objective measurements, but on the basis of the traditional expertise of the orthopedic shoemaker or podiatrist. In addition, existing measurement systems that can quantify the pressure on the foot in a shoe are limited to the sole of the foot and are therefore unable to identify pressure points on the top of the foot. Because about half of all foot ulcers occur on the top of the foot, it is important, however, that the pressure can also be measured on that side.
With the ExPressure-1 project, the consortium, which consists of MKB (Voetencentrum Wender, Voetmax, PLT products, Podo-IT), university of applied sciences (Saxion University), and university (University of Twente), aims to develop a sensor sock. that can map the skin pressure exerted by the shoe around the entire foot. Because the properties of this sock, such as thickness and comfort, will be comparable to ready-to-wear socks, a realistic and reliable picture can be obtained of the pressure profile around the foot, so that well-fitting shoe material can be designed.
With the development of the sensor sock, foot care for people with diabetes will make a significant step forward, meeting the needs of the care provider, the patient and society. For the healthcare provider, it is plausible that an improvement in foot care will lead to revenue growth due to an increase in the number of customers. For diabetes patients, better fitting shoes lead to greater comfort and a lower risk of foot ulcers; this improves their quality of life. Finally, the social cost as a result of foot ulcers is € 240 million per year; reduction of the incidence of foot ulcers therefore leads to considerable cost savings for society.
Contact
University of Twente
Other participants
Stein Exterkate, s.exterkate@podotherapeut.nl
Zeynab Kamal, z.kamal@utwente.nl