For five weeks this summer, we were lucky enough to have an intern from one of the O&P technical education programs working with us. We like working with interns because it gives us a chance to see the relative effectiveness of the various technical education program curricula and because we get some free labor! Another [...]
Not all of my ideas are good ones, and neither are yours, but you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Frequently I am asked to build an orthosis, which, in my humble opinion, is bound to fail. It could be because of the design, the materials chosen, or even the components, but for [...]
Remember TPE (thermoplastic elastomer)? I first heard about it when I read an article in 1990 by Ron Sutton, BSE, CO, in the Journal of Prosthetics & Orthotics (JPO). When used to fabricate an AFO, this cool new material was just rigid enough to allow some control, but flexible enough to allow a more natural [...]
There are a lot of theories about how people learn. For example, some educators believe that there are three different modes of learning: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Basically, you learn either by hearing, seeing, or doing. While I believe that people use each of these learning techniques at different times and to varying degrees, I [...]
The phrase “work your magic” is both a compliment and a curse. On one hand, it is a tremendous vote of confidence when someone clearly believes I have the skill, experience, wisdom, or whatever to turn a bad cast into a functional orthosis. On the other hand, I know who is hiding behind the curtain, [...]
It’s been said that America’s favorite color is shiny, and I agree. Pre-preg is great. Really, it’s a wonderful material—high strength-to-weight ratio, easy to engineer, highly repeatable—but there’s just one problem…it’s ugly! The usual method of using a cloth wick and a breather layer to remove excess resin during the curing process leaves a dull, [...]
Welcome to the fork in the road—this is when we decide how the future unfolds. Over the past year of working with the American Board for Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics & Pedorthics (ABC), I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the future of technician credentialing, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the [...]
In the early days of my career, plastic braces were the wave of the future, and conventional metal orthoses were “old fashioned.” But over the years, I’ve managed to find a lot of value in the rugged simplicity of the conventional metal orthosis. I was lucky enough to have trained when almost every brace clinic [...]
When I started out as an orthotic technician over 25 years ago, I believed you should always flatten the plantar surface of an AFO mold. That’s what I was taught because it was the conventional wisdom of the day. Then I had the opportunity to work with a group of physical therapy students. I felt [...]
Whether I like working on a certain task or not is directly related to how cool the tools are. If I have to paint a room with a paintbrush, I dread it and procrastinate as much as possible, but if a friend said he’d loan me a paint sprayer, the task takes on a whole [...]