Knee osteoarthritis: What can a shoe do?
01/14/2020
Mark Campbell, MD, was featured in the November/December edition of the Ontario Medical Review (page 36). The topic: A shoe. Well, kind of.
At the 2019 Innovation Fund Showcase, Mark demonstrated how a shoe modification can help people with osteoarthritis in the knee. This condition can cause serious discomfort. In many cases, the person will have difficulty straightening the affected leg. This means that, when walking, one leg will be shorter than the other. After a while of walking like this, the affected leg can become more stiff and painful—not to mention the problems that can come with the associated limp.
So what is there to be done? Mark’s proposed solution: let’s make one shoe higher than the other. He thinks that this could keep the legs the same length, reduce pain, and reduce stiffness. And this could all be done for just a few dollars more than the cost of a regular shoe.
Mark is still gathering evidence on the effectiveness of this innovation. But his recent literature review suggests that it could be a game-changer for people with osteoarthritis in the knee. Read it here.