Thank you for your responses, I will discuss all of this with my patient.
Katherine
Original post:
Hi List,
I have a female patient who has a very long trans-tibialamputation. She would like to resume a hobby of ballet dancing. Cananybody recomend a foot or prosthetic design that would allow her toparticipate?
Thank you,
Katherine Kozlik
Bionics Orthotics and Prosthetics
San Diego, CA
Responses:
There is a carbon foot, called “runway” of freedominovation enterprise. I think that it is recommended because this foot hasheight control, and may allow the ballet.
Assuming the foot would have to both be flat, but alsoplantar flex to extremes, how about a KC051 Flattie Steplite with a Rampro SwimAnkle which has a smaller ankle profile that the Active ankle.
I did ballet for 10 years and I don’t think there’s anyspecialized foot out there that will help her achieve clasic balletpositions. She could get a foot positioned for standing or for standingon tip toes in point shoes, but nothing that goes back and for between thetwo. Ballet is all about fine ankle movement and prosthetic feet justdon’t do that.
How can we give her passive ankle control while she is standing and or moving?
When working with dancers in general you must understand the things they will be doing in order to select a prosthetic foot. As a ballet dancer she probably did a fair amount of toe work but in addition her different positions require her to be able to leap as well as stand with her feet flat on the ground. In the past I’ve use flex foot blades or mod 3’s with a short heel toe setup. Although challenging the results for the patients were very satisfying.
