Assistive Technologies

• Right Leg

  

• Features

  People with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis or following a stroke, often find that walking becomes progressively more difficult as the disease progresses. What starts out as foot drop, when the foot flops down as you lift your leg, gradually develops into a whole-leg problem. Eventually you have problems with your ankle, knee, and hip and walking is very difficult.

  Current products such as AFOs help with the ankle flopping, but when the weakness spreads up the leg, they offer only partial support. This is the time for you to consider the Musmate, which has been designed for such difficult walking. It uses a shoulder harness and an elastic cord connected to the shoe. When walking, the thigh muscles push down on the elastic cord to stretch it and it in turn gently supports the raising of your foot and leg.

  This lifting action also has the benefit of gently bending the knee - knee flexion to the professionals. This is because the lifting action is not in line with the leg and so creates pressure on the knee to move. A similar approach is often used by physiotherapists when teaching people how to walk again following a stroke or brain injury. They often use a bandage or similar to pull the leg up and thus cause the knee to bend.

• Benefits

  Most importantly this lifting action takes some of the weight onto the shoulder which reduces the effort the hip needs to make to swing the leg forward- which is called hip flexion by specialists. The Musmate's ability to assist hip flexion is important in maintaining your ability to walk because without this swing forward, it can become very difficult for you to walk.

  The Musmate has two additional adjustments to improve your mobility further. Firstly the amount of support the Musmate provides is adjustable. As you need more support, it can easily be increased. Secondly, the height to which your foot is lifted is also controlled. It is quick and easy to adjust the Musmate to lift your foot higher, which means you can cross rough ground or even go up stairs.

  Since the foot has regained its normal action, Walking is made easier. Secondly, there is less risk of trips or falls because the foot is not dragging. The result is that people walk more than they used to. This creates a positive circle whereby increasing mobility leads to greater fitness which in turn reduces the effort required to walk. People can work more, and improve their social lives.

• Both Legs

  

Our Other Products

• 
  Musmate Walking Aid for
  Foot Drop & Hip Flexion
• 
  Quadstep Walking Stick & Low
  Step to Help Climb Stairs
• 
  Decorative Covers
  for Walking Sticks & Canes
• 
  
  Trueback for Back Pain Relief   
• 
  Anklemate for
  Resisted Ankle Dorsiflexion
• 
  Rocketmate Paper
  Rocket Launcher
• 
  
  Adjustable Straps
• 
  
  Plastic and Metal Components

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