Use and Usability Of Custom-Made Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthoses In Polio Survivors with Knee Instability: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Objective: To investigate the use of custom-made knee-ankle-foot orthoses in daily life and differences in usability factors of knee-ankle-foot orthoses between users and discontinued users. Design: Cross-sectional survey study. Subjects: A total of 163 polio survivors provided with a knee-ankle-foot orthosis at an outpatient clinic of a university hospital. Methods: Use and usability of knee-ankle-foot orthoses in daily life were assessed with a postal questionnaire. Usability factors were formulated using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9241-11 standard. Results: A total of 106 respondents (65%) returned the questionnaire. Of these, 98 were eligible for analysis. Seventy-four respondents (76%) reported using their knee-ankle-foot orthosis. Compared with discontinued users (24%), users experienced more limitations when walking without an orthosis (p = 0.001), were more often experienced with wearing a previous orthosis (p