The Ultimate Foot Screening Tool: How Plantar Pressure Systems Work

The soles of human feet have always been dynamically perceiving every contact with the ground.

The plantar force distribution is crucial to our entire gait.

Once the plantar force distribution in our feet becomes abnormal, it may affect the balance of the entire lower limb alignment; for example, when plantar high-pressure areas, center of gravity deviation, overpronation, oversupination, or diabetic foot ulcer risks occur, they will make us feel plantar fatigue during daily walking or exercise, and may even cause compensatory discomfort throughout the entire body.

With the improvement of people's living standards, everyone is paying more and more attention to the biomechanical assessment of the feet, and plantar pressure testing has gradually become a part of physical examinations, especially in the adolescent and children group, for whom regular plantar force screening is very necessary.

This is because during the adolescent and children period, the children's foot muscles and neural feedback have not completely matured; if potential force distribution abnormalities can be discovered in time and intervened promptly, they can be easily corrected, and the cost paid will not be so high.

However, if these severe force distribution problems are not discovered until adulthood, by that time, the abnormal force generation habits of the feet will have solidified, making them difficult to completely correct; in most cases, they can only be relieved. Therefore, for force distribution problems, the earlier they are discovered, the easier they are to correct; possibly, only convenient methods such as custom orthotic insoles and gait training are needed to achieve ideal results.

In foot screening programs, one of the most commonly seen high-tech devices is the plantar pressure distribution system.

The plantar pressure distribution system adopts the principle of high-density sensor arrays to dynamically collect data from the soles of human feet, obtain mechanical data such as plantar pressure distribution information, and analyze them through software, ultimately being able to export measurement reports that truly reflect the gait health condition of human bodies.

In the measurement reports, it can accurately help us judge whether there are plantar force distribution abnormalities such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, hallux valgus, or unstable center of gravity.

The measured dynamic data such as pressure heat maps can be applied to the design and manufacturing of orthotic insoles, the customization and research and development of sports shoes, and the design and manufacturing of rehabilitation aids.

Combined with the measurement data and measurement reports, doctors and rehabilitation therapists can also formulate reasonable personalized training plans or gait correction plans for us, which can also be applied to pre-injury and post-injury rehabilitation assessments and provide effective scientific data references for subsequent rehabilitation tracking, so as to better maintain our foot health.

Of course, if combined with the morphological data and foot geometric structure data measured by the 3D plantar scanner, the data will be more comprehensive, and the effects of the manufactured orthoses, orthotic insoles, and orthopedic shoes will be more obvious.

The measurement by the plantar pressure distribution system is very simple; one only needs to walk normally on the test plate, and it takes about dozens of seconds to complete all the measurements and tests; the operation is simple and can be learned at once, and it will not cause any burden to the human body and joints; it belongs to non-invasive measurement, is safe, and has high data accuracy, with the sampling frequency reaching up to hundreds of hertz.

The plantar pressure distribution system can be applied in school foot screening, hospital gait health screening, force distribution assessment in rehabilitation institutions, performance optimization for sports teams, and the customization of orthotic insoles, and other fields.