Use of a three-curved rocker sole shoe modification to improve intermittent claudication calf pain — A pilot study

Article Outline

• Abstract
• Methods
• Results
  • Claudication distance
  • Intensity of claudication pain
• Discussion
  • Limitations of the study
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A. Patient information sheet
• References
• Copyright

This was a pilot study utilizing hospital-based walking trials to compare two footwear conditions. Two pairs of identical therapeutic shoes were ordered for volunteer claudicant subjects. One pair was adapted with a specifically designed three-curve rocker sole. Volunteer claudicant subjects (n = 8, mean age 66 +/- 9.9 years) with stable pain-free distances of 10 – 400 meters to calf claudication pain were recruited into the study. Walking trials were used to compare differences in both the pain-free distance to claudication and the intensity of the calf pain once claudicating exhibited by each subject while walking separately with the two footwear conditions during the same clinical session. The results demonstrated that claudicant pain-free walking distance was increased, and the intensity of claudication calf pain reduced when walking with the rocker-soled in comparison with baseline. A specifically designed rocker sole has the potential to offer a reduction in the intensity of calf pain experienced by claudicants. A more extensive study is planned to determine the efficacy of this new footwear adaptation when the footwear is worn for extended periods.

Subjects with intermittent claudication (IC) suffer from an inability to walk long distances without experiencing claudication pain in the calf region. IC is a vascular condition that limits the distance patients can walk before experiencing pain in the lower limbs. The word "claudication" is derived from the Latin claudicare, meaning to limp.¹ The distance that can be covered before pain commences varies greatly from patient to patient and depends on the severity of the underlying condition. Symptoms mainly occur in the calf, though the thigh and gluteal musculature may also be affected. The symptoms usually disappear after a period of rest. McDermott et al (2001) used a flow diagram to classify patients with peripheral vascular disease and leg pain as claudicants (i.e., those patients with intermittent claudication).² Indicative symptoms were stated as:

The severity of peripheral artery disease (PAD) may be divided into the Fontaine stages, introduced by René Fontaine in 1954 for ischemia.³, ⁴ Subjects with IC fall into one of the 2 subcategories (Stage 11a - severe pain when walking relatively short distances (IC), with pain triggered by walking “after a distance of > 150 m”; Stage 11b - severe pain when walking relatively short distances (IC), with pain triggered by walking “after a distance < 150 m).”

The condition is caused by PAD in the lower limbs, which limits blood flow. This is secondary in most cases to arteriosclerosis obliterans, a disease adversely affecting the composition of the artery walls. Calf-muscle pain is the most common symptom, usually due to a diseased superficial femoral artery.⁵ Approximately 40% of patients diagnosed with PAD suffer from IC.⁶ Because PAD is age related, and because the proportion of the population over 65 years of age is increasing, it can be expected that the prevalence of patients with PAD will increase.

Intermittent claudication is most common in men over 60, and 5% of the population develop IC at 50 years of age or over.⁷ The incidence increases with age due to the progression of disease of the vascular system, which affects the efficiency of the vascular supply to the lower limbs.⁸ This was confirmed by Leng et al (1995)⁹ who stated the incidence rate was 4% in the over-55 age range. The reduction in walking capacity experienced by patients with IC can result in a high degree of limitation in mental and physical functioning and in performance of a social role.¹⁰

Current conservative treatment regimes include discontinuation of smoking, walking exercises and optimal drug control of concomitant factors. Structured and supervised PAD rehabilitation involving exercise is a highly efficacious treatment for IC and may be regarded as the current “gold standard” among conservative treatment options.¹¹ Surgical bypass procedures have been the gold standard for surgical treatment of extensive PAD, but percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) is the most widely applied surgical treatment.¹² An adjuvant benefit of PTA over best medical therapy¹³ and also supervised exercise¹⁴, ¹⁵ in the treatment of IC has also been demonstrated.

Approximately 75% of claudicants remain stable in the long term.¹⁶ However, claudicant symptoms may fail to improve as significantly as expected, even though they have followed gold standard treatments, such as supervised exercise therapy, especially if the patient continues to smoke and has a high body-mass index (BMI).¹⁷ One potential alternative form of treatment could therefore be the use of footwear adaptations. However, there is no current level-1 evidence to support the use of orthotic modifications over or in conjunction with supervised exercise, or indeed other treatment options for claudicants. The purpose of this study was to provide initial evidence by means of a pilot study, about whether the use of a footwear adaptation in the form of a specifically designed rocker sole could potentially increase the distance to claudication (known as the claudication distance) and also to analyze the effect it would have on the intensity of pain while claudicating when worn by volunteer claudicants.

The use of footwear adaptations in the treatment of IC has previously been limited to studies involving the use of heel elevators¹⁸ or the addition of traditional "angled" rocker soles to footwear.¹⁹ The potential efficacy of adding bilateral heel elevators to the shoes of patients with IC arose because they would theoretically place the ankle in an equinous position by altering the pitch of the shoes. However, the results showed no significant improvement in pain-free walking distance in those patients tested and, as such, this type of intervention was not recommended.

One published study has used rocker soles to help reduce claudication calf pain.¹⁹ However, variable results were demonstrated in increasing the pain-free walking distance for IC subjects. The authors recommended further development of alternative rocker shapes to potentially increase claudication distance. Commercially available footwear such as Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoes are designed with a multicurved rocker profile in the sole and heel, but they are designed to make certain muscles such as the gastrocnemius work harder during walking in comparison with more conventional footwear.²⁰, ²¹ If footwear could be designed to achieve the opposite effect to reduce the symptoms of calf pain associated with IC by incorporating a different multicurved rocker profile to that used in MBT footwear, then this could serve as an adjunct therapy to the alternative treatments currently available.

An alternative orthotic intervention could potentially involve the use of thermoplastic cosmetic ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) designed to prevent ankle joint motion. However, due to the potential loss of the calf-pump mechanism during ambulation when walking with fixed-angle AFOs, these were discounted for use in this pilot study.

Therapeutic shoes have demonstrated efficacy in prophylactically protecting the foot in those patients with diabetes mellitus and lower limb vascular disease who are at risk of ulceration from excessive plantar pressures in association with total contact inlays.²² Rocker-soled shoes have also been shown to redistribute foot plantar pressures in those patients at risk of tissue stress due to vascular disease because of increased loading of the forefoot structures.²³

This paper therefore presents the results of a pilot study designed to give an initial indication of the potential of a three-curve rocker sole added to the base of off-the-shelf (OTS) therapeutic shoes in producing an increase in the pain-free walking distance of claudicants and also a reduction in the intensity of calf-claudication pain. The hypothesis was that when claudicants walked with a specifically designed rocker-soled shoe, symptoms of claudication pain would be reduced in comparison with walking with an identical un-adapted shoe, and the claudication distance would be increased.

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Methods 

Volunteer claudicants were recruited into this study via attendance at the Lifestyle Management Clinic in the Vascular Department at Wirral University Hospitals NHS Trust, Merseyside, United Kingdom, under the care of a consultant vascular surgeon and a specialist vascular nurse. Approval was granted by the Wirral Hospitals Local Research and Ethics Committee. A patient information sheet (Appendix A) and consent form were inspected and approved for publication.

Volunteer subjects were recruited from the lifestyle-management clinic led by a specialist vascular nurse. They were included in the study if evidence in the clinical notes showed that they had PAD in the femoral artery or more distally and that they showed evidence of claudication pain in the calf area after having walked only within the range of 10 m – 400 m before the onset of calf pain. Subjects who experienced pain in the thighs or buttocks were excluded from the study. Subjects who could not read/write English were not excluded; however, all subjects were over 55 years of age and were able to give informed consent to volunteer for the study.

Claudicants were monitored in the clinic for a minimum of 3 months prior to being recruited to ensure that their pain-free walking distance via walking tests had stabilized and also that their ABI had not altered and was not being further improved following daily walking exercise. Subjects were excluded if they had any peripheral neuropathy due to diabetes mellitus; however, other diabetic subjects were not excluded.

Further details of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for volunteers in this study are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria

All 8 volunteer claudicants recruited had been prescribed aspirin (75 mg) and were receiving statin therapy. One subject suffered from diabetes mellitus. All subjects recruited were in the Fontaine Stage 11a category for IC.

Each subject was measured to ascertain their shoe size and width fitting by the same registered (certified) orthotist. Two pairs of stock therapeutic shoes (C. Hanley and Co., Northampton, United Kingdom) were reserved for each subject, 1 for use as a baseline control shoe (Figure 1), and the other to be adapted with a three-curve rocker profile (Figure 2). All shoes were adapted by the same technician using the same materials. The control shoe and the rocker shoe were identical prior to the rocker sole was added in order to isolate the effect of the rocker profile during the walking trials. It was thought that had the patient worn their own shoes as a control condition, then other parameters, such as the fit of the shoe, its length and the style and design of the upper and materials used, would negate the possibility of a direct comparison. Any demonstrated alterations to the symptoms associated with intermittent claudication would then result from the alteration to the sole and heel in comparison with an identical shoe, rather than to a change in the shoe, and would negate any influences associated with alteration to shoe fit and style (especially the way in which it held the foot in the shoe).

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• Figure 1 

  Baseline unadapted shoe.

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• Figure 2 

  The three-curve rocker profile.

The results of a previous study involving healthy volunteer subjects when walking with this rocker sole adaptation,²⁴ demonstrated that it significantly reduced the power generation and absorption at the ankle required to walk at self-selected walking speeds.

The rocker profile was specifically designed to place the foot into relative plantar flexion during stance phase of gait in comparison with baseline walking while simultaneously reducing sagittal plane ankle motion (Figure 3). The radius of the 3 curves comprising the rocker profile were designed to be centered on the sagittal plane centers of the ankle, hip and knee, respectively, during the transition through stance phase of gait. This method placed the deepest part of the rocker sole directly underneath the ankle joint and enticed the shoe to roll gently forwards. This would theoretically reduce the extent of work done by the muscles acting anteriorly and posteriorly on each joint in turn by reducing the externally applied moments acting on them. This was because the line of action of the ground reaction force passed closer to the anatomical joint centers in comparison with an unadapted shoe. In this way, the lower limb muscles acting on these joints would feasibly require a lower oxygen demand (although that was not tested).

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• Figure 3 

  Illustration of curve parameters for the three-curve rocker design used in this study.

Physiologically, the shoe was designed to potentially reduce the work that needed to be done by the lower limb muscles during ambulation (in particular the gastrocnemius medial and lateral head), while still allowing the calf-pump mechanism to provide venous return up the leg. It is known that the most efficient position for a muscle to provide contractile force is at its resting length (i.e., not lengthened or shortened). For the gastrocnemius, the resting length is when the ankle is at 90 degrees (i.e., neither plantarflexed or dorsiflexed).²⁵ Analysis of the effect of the three-curve rocker profile on ankle angles during ambulation by 12 healthy subjects demonstrated that it placed the ankle in a mean position of 1 degree of plantarflexion at mid stance (50% of stance phase of gait) in comparison with 5 degrees of dorsiflexion in an identical unadapted shoe.²⁴ It therefore placed the ankle into a position relatively plantarflexed by 6 degrees than in an unadapted shoe at that point in the gait cycle, and thus nearer to the most efficient point in the range of motion (ROM) of the gastrocnemius. In addition, it also reduced the moment arm of the externally applied ground reaction force acting at the ankle. This meant that less concentric contraction would be needed during the propulsive phase.

Physiologically, the moment lever arm from the ankle joint center to the Achilles tendon position is at its most advantageous position between 0 and 8 degrees of plantarflexion, making the muscle action more efficient by requiring less force generation to provide the same moment around the ankle.²⁶, ²⁷ The three-curve rocker sole addition therefore achieved this.

All subjects were tested while walking along a flat, level hospital corridor at their self-selected comfortable walking speed from a fixed starting position. The hospital corridor chosen for the study was straight, flat and uninterrupted. Volunteer subjects walked with a vascular specialist nurse in attendance. The first of the 2 walking trials was randomized for each volunteer subject as either the baseline shoe condition or the rocker profile shoe to neutralize any carryover effects. However, such carryover effects have been proven in the literature to be negligible for other rocker profiles.²⁸, ²⁹, ³⁰, ³¹ A 5-minute period of acclimatization to the shoe was allowed before each walking test. This was done by asking the patient to stand initially to ensure that the shoes were comfortable and to test the fit. Then slow, short steps were allowed in the clinic room to make sure that the shoes did not slip at the back, were secured correctly, and the subject could walk safely in them without feeling unsteady.

Volunteer subjects were asked to rest for 20 minutes before commencing the short period of acclimatization and each walk. This 20-minute rest to recuperate before each walking trial was necessary to ensure their lower limb oxygen levels were at baseline resting level along with their arterial pressure immediately prior to walking. This was done following evidence in the literature that indicated that 20 minutes’ rest was more than adequate to facilitate return to baseline values.³² Neither the lower limb O₂ levels nor the arterial pressure were measured during the walking trials. The subjects were then invited to commence their walk at their self-selected comfortable walking speed.

At the point of sudden onset of claudication pain, subjects were asked to walk immediately around in a circle and walk back along the same corridor to the starting position or until they felt they had to stop. This enabled an estimation of the effect of the three-curve rocker profile on the intensity of claudication pain in comparison with the baseline condition. All subjects were able to walk back to the starting position without pausing or stopping and were asked to sit and rest once they had arrived back at the starting position. It was decided not to formally test patients to determine their maximum walking distance (MWD) before having to stop, because it was thought that the IC distance (ICD) could be accurately documented and measured using the instant that sudden onset of calf pain occurred. This could not be controlled by the volunteer subject. The MWD was thought to be more subjective by involving input from the volunteer.

Using a visual analogue scale (VAS), as shown in Figure 4, Figure 5, the subjects were asked to give an indication of the intensity of their calf claudication pain experienced while walking back to their original starting position for both test conditions. This was therefore assessed when walking with both the baseline unadapted shoe and the rocker profile condition. By using the sliding mechanism on the scale, they arrived at a position that reflected their pain level during claudication. A reading from the scale on the reverse side of the VAS between 1 and 10 (10 being the worst pain) was recorded. The subjects were unaware of the results and only saw the indicators on the front face of the VAS. None of the subjects reported any discomfort or unsteadiness when wearing the shoes, and no problems with acceptability of the adapted shoes by the volunteers were reported.

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• Figure 4 

  The VAS mechanism as seen by the volunteer subjects.

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• Figure 5 

  The VAS sliding mechanism showing the numerical scale.

The precise total distance to claudication was measured using a pedometer/stepometer. (Figure 6: Model - “MiniMeasure,” Trumeter, Leeds, United Kingdom).

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• Figure 6 

  Claudication distance measuring device.

The distance to the onset of claudication was recorded in meters. The walking trials for both conditions (baseline versus three-curve rocker profile) were randomized and took place during the same clinical session to provide an optimal comparison between the 2 test conditions in preference to inter-day testing.³³, ³⁴

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Results 

Eight patients undertook the pilot walking trials. Seven patients were male, and 1 was female. Table 2 shows the demographics for the volunteer claudicant group.

Table 2. Volunteer claudicant demographics

Primary outcome measures were pain-free walking distance to the onset of calf claudication pain and the severity of pain once claudicating for either test condition.

All data were analyzed using SPSS (version 13.0) with a repeated measures analysis of variance. The significance level was set at P < 0.05 with post-hoc Bonferroni correction used to reduce the chance of type 1 errors.

Claudication distance 

All claudicants tested (n = 8) demonstrated a significant increase (P = 0.01) in pain-free claudication distance when walking with the three-curve rocker profile adaptation in comparison with baseline. Figure 7 illustrates a comparison of the improvement in the claudication distance achieved when wearing the three-curve rocker test condition. The mean claudication distance increased from 31.59 m to 66.40 m; a mean increase of 34.81 m.

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• Figure 7 

  Comparison of walking distance for volunteer claudicants during the three-curve rocker-profile test condition in comparison with baseline.

Intensity of claudication pain 

The intensity of calf pain once claudicating demonstrated a statistically significant reduction (P = 0.00) when walking with the three-curve rocker profile in comparison with baseline (Figure 8). All claudicants registered a reduction in the severity of claudication pain based on the VAS scale. The claudication pain in all cases occurred in the same area of the calf for both test conditions.

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• Figure 8 

  VAS pain score reductions demonstrated during walking trials.

The mean pain reduction as indicated by the VAS scoring was reduced from a value of 7.75 on a scale of 1 to 10 in severity of pain. Volunteer claudicants indicated a mean reduction of 3.3 from their pain score for the baseline condition while claudicating. The VAS calf pain score while wearing the baseline unadapted shoes was remarkably consistent (mean 7.75, standard deviation (SD) 0.87). The mean VAS calf pain score when walking with the rocker-soled shoes was 4.41 (SD 1.64).

The results therefore demonstrated that walking with the three-curve rocker profile condition increased the pain-free walking distance to claudication in all subjects tested (P = 0.008) and substantially decreased the severity of calf pain once claudication had commenced (P = 0.002). A summary table with the mean findings is shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Summary of results

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Discussion 

This pilot study was designed to gain a first indication of the clinical relevance of adding a rocker sole profile to footwear to potentially reduce the intensity of calf claudication pain and to increase the pain-free ICD. It was also designed to indicate the subject numbers required for a randomized controlled clinical trial.

All claudicants demonstrated an increased ICD with the rocker-soled shoe. All of the claudicants who volunteered for the study also regarded the cosmetic appearance of the three-curve rocker acceptable, and none of the subjects reported any feeling of unsteadiness or discomfort during the walking trials. In addition, no subjects reported discomfort in the hips or back during the walking trials, and no long-term complications are envisioned.

Biomechanical analysis of this three-curve rocker profile in a previous study, along with healthy subjects walking in shoes adapted with it under gait laboratory conditions, demonstrated a reduction in the sagittal plane power absorption and power generation required to walk at the ankle and the knee in comparison with an unadapted shoe.²⁴ It was anticipated that such a reduction would translate into increased pain-free walking distance by claudicants.

The important finding for this study was that biomechanically modifying claudicant gait via the application of a specific rocker profile resulted in a significantly increased ICD in all the subjects as well as a substantial reduction in the intensity of their pain levels once claudicating.

The walking tests utilized a long, straight hospital corridor. Although it is conceded that treadmill testing is currently the most widely used measurement technique for repeated measurement of ICD and MWD, constant-load treadmill walking tests have been shown by some researchers to be more variable than walking tests.³⁵, ³⁶ Furthermore, the magnitude and variability of MWD and ICD change with test familiarization and habituation. Level-treadmill tests have been shown to underestimate the maximum walking distance by over 40% in comparison with active walking on a level surface.³⁷, ³⁸ The use of walking along a level surface was therefore thought to be an appropriate alternative means of assessing individual patients for this study, although it is appreciated that treadmills can also simulate uphill walking and are routinely used in clinical practice.

Walking on inclined surfaces would theoretically produce calf-pain symptoms earlier than walking on a flat surface, and this needs to be investigated in a future study of participants walking on various slopes under controlled conditions with the 2 test-shoe conditions described in this study.

The results nevertheless gave the authors an indication of the number of volunteer subjects required for, and the confidence to proceed to, a randomized controlled trial for claudicants walking with a three-curve rocker sole profile added to their footwear during their daily activities.

The encouraging finding of significant reduction in the intensity of the calf pain once claudicating indicated that the gastrocnemius muscle may have been offloaded due to the fact that the three-curve rocker sole is designed to facilitate a gentle forward roll of the foot during stance without being too unstable; it is also designed to position the muscle in a more advantageous position during mid- to late-stance phase of gait when in contact with the ground during the propulsion phase. However, this probable unloading effect is yet unproven. A further study is also planned to investigate this phenomenon.

No adverse reactions were reported during these walking tests, and none were encountered during a previous study. Therefore, It would be interesting to investigate the alteration in severity of claudication pain and the achievable walking distance achieved by claudicants following a randomized controlled trial while they were walking with the profile over an extended period. Increased habituation may also alter the pain-free walking distance, but the long-term effects of the rocker-soled shoe on gait parameters are yet also unknown.

The pain-free ICD was quantified as a primary outcome measure to enable a direct comparison of data relating to the sudden onset of pain. This was an outcome measure that could be accurately quantified and not easily controlled by the volunteer claudicant and therefore not subjective. The MWD was not included as a primary outcome measure in preference to the severity of the pain while claudicating. It is, however, conceded that this parameter is one that is routinely measured.

Limitations of the study 

The limitations of this study are the limited number of subjects (n = 8) included in the study and therefore the lack of available data produced to perform extensive statistical analysis based on the results, because the data may not have had a normal distribution. It was not therefore possible, for instance, to link severity of disease to potential improvement of symptoms when walking with the rocker-sole profile added to the base of the shoe. Both the patient and the investigators were also unblinded.

Another limitation was the decision not to analyze the MWD of the volunteer claudicants. However, all the subjects who volunteered for the study were able to walk without stopping back to the original starting point after experiencing claudication pain.

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Conclusion 

This pilot study demonstrated the potential for an adapted shoe to help reduce the intensity of claudication calf pain and to enable claudicants to walk further before experiencing calf pain. Further research is therefore warranted to develop rocker-sole profiles to be added to footwear to help reduce the symptoms experienced by claudicants and possibly other patient groups, such as those with Achilles tendonitis.

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Acknowledgments 

This work was funded by the NHS Executive North West, UK under the R&D Training Fellowship scheme and their assistance in producing this work is gratefully acknowledged. The sponsors were not involved in any aspect of the study.

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Appendix A. Patient information sheet 

The use of rocker (clog-shaped) soles to shoes in the treatment of patients with pain in the lower limb when walking (those with intermittent claudication).

The study method will be to simply see if the addition of the rocker sole helps you walk further before the onset of pain in your leg than without it added on the same pair of shoes.

Also, on receiving new information your research fellow might consider it to be in your best interests to withdraw you from the study. He/she will explain the reasons and arrange for your care to continue.

Thank you for taking part in the study.

April 2000 No. 1 You will be given a copy of the information sheet and a signed consent form to keep.

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