Fig 1.
The brace system used in this study.
The system is made from curved aluminum segments, shoulder straps, cushioned compression plates, and pads to cushion the defect. The clinical also uses an instrumented pad to obtain measurements and assist in fitting the brace.
Table 1.
Table 2.
Fig 2.
Demonstrations of an example use of the POC model (Eq 3).
The predicted time to obtain a zero POC, assuming the same PT through the entire treatment, can be seen by where the lines intersect the horizontal axis. The prediction starts at 1 month as no first follow-up visit was less than 18 days from the initial fitting. (A) Three cases with the same initial POC value are shown with varying PT values. (B) Three cases demonstrating the effect of varying hours of daily wear for the same initial POC and PT on the correction time.
Fig 3.
Example case of using the model in a piecewise treatment plan.
The models will predict POC values which could be used to determine ideal times between follow-up visits and identify times of low patient compliance. This demonstration assumes 1 month between follow up visit. The model prediction is shown in red with fictitious patient data shown in blue. The model is updated at each follow-up visit which can then be used to alter treatment plans and adjust the predicted treatment duration.
Fig 4.
An example case of using the ΔPT model found in Eq 5 at predicting the pressure exerted by the brace on the deformity as a function of time.
The example case shown has a PT of 1 PSI at 12 hrs/day of wear.