DanielCoffey
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 59
- Location
- Edinburgh, UK
This might be something a little different for you to think about. I need some help sourcing a pair of shoes for my wife who is a long-term wheelchair user.
She has several issues that prevent her wearing normal shoes and I don't know what resources are available in the UK to either get custom shoes made or if these problems have been encountered before and solved. The few sites I have seen that make "special" shoes for disabled people have styles that both of us consider utterly dreadful and I am sure there are other options such as getting a custom pair made or a style of shoe/boot that I have not noticed or considered yet.
What she is wearing now is a pair of Hotter shoes with two slim velcro straps that go over the top of the foot and attach on the outer side. The problem is the velcro has gone fuzzy and cannot be easily replaced.
Foot shape - She has been in the wheelchair so long now that her foot shape has changed. She cannot stand and put any weight on her feet so the tendons on the underside have shortened, causing the foot to arch slightly. It is now "taller" than a normal foot shape and "normal" shoes do not fit her foot shape unless the opening and tongue are particularly deep.
Frequency of shoe fitting/removal - I have to take her shoes on and off a lot during the day. This is the main cause of wear and tear on the fastenings of her current pair. She has a rise-recline chair that she tends to sit in with her feet up and shoes off so every time she gets taken to the bathroom it is shoes on, transfer to bathroom chair, move to bathroom, use bathroom, move to bedroom, transfer to bed, shoes off, re-fit trousers, shoes on, transfer to wheelchair, move to living room, transfer to recliner, shoes off. As a result of all this shoes on/off routine, laces are totally out of the question as I would be tying and untying them around somewhere between 30-40 times a day by the time you add it all up. Buckles are a possible solution but might not be fast enough to get on and off. Velcro is what we have at the moment but over time and with that amount of usage the fluffy side of the velcro tends to go fuzzy and lose its effectiveness after a few months and the shoes are never designed to have the velcro replaced easily.
Foot twisting on transfer - because my wife cannot take any significant weight on her legs when transferring from one chair to another, our routine is a sort of "lift and pivot" which tends to put a lot of lateral twisting on the shoes. If the velcro fastening is getting worn, this almost always results in the shoe twisting off her foot at just the wrong moment an I am then struggling to get the foot back into the shoe while she waits. I was concerned that the Chelsea Boot style with the elasticated sides would not really suit us because of this factor but I would be interested in hearing form any wheelchair users who have tried this style.
I was wondering if there were some other fastening methods which could be used? Perhaps some sort of clip or stud fastening which might work? Designs of velcro which would resist the twisting better? I have a pair of cycle shoes which have the velcro attached to the outside side of the shoe - it passes over the top of your foot, through a flat metal bar and back over the top of the foot again where it sticks. This fastening is designed to hold the cycle shoelaces in place so they don't get caught in the chain and seems to hold up well to twisting because of the "pulley" effect of the bar.
So folks, here is the challenge - what "proper" shoes/boots are there that we could use or get modified that don't look like they were designed by a well-meaning person who has never had to wear them. I am not at all interested in the "cheapest" solution here - I want her to have a good pair of shoes that are easy to get on and off in a hurry but which will stand up to a very high frequency of use.
If you have more questions or want to discuss shoe styles with us that we may have missed, I am subscribed to the thread and will be monitoring it in the UK daytime.
Thanks,
Daniel.
She has several issues that prevent her wearing normal shoes and I don't know what resources are available in the UK to either get custom shoes made or if these problems have been encountered before and solved. The few sites I have seen that make "special" shoes for disabled people have styles that both of us consider utterly dreadful and I am sure there are other options such as getting a custom pair made or a style of shoe/boot that I have not noticed or considered yet.
What she is wearing now is a pair of Hotter shoes with two slim velcro straps that go over the top of the foot and attach on the outer side. The problem is the velcro has gone fuzzy and cannot be easily replaced.
Foot shape - She has been in the wheelchair so long now that her foot shape has changed. She cannot stand and put any weight on her feet so the tendons on the underside have shortened, causing the foot to arch slightly. It is now "taller" than a normal foot shape and "normal" shoes do not fit her foot shape unless the opening and tongue are particularly deep.
Frequency of shoe fitting/removal - I have to take her shoes on and off a lot during the day. This is the main cause of wear and tear on the fastenings of her current pair. She has a rise-recline chair that she tends to sit in with her feet up and shoes off so every time she gets taken to the bathroom it is shoes on, transfer to bathroom chair, move to bathroom, use bathroom, move to bedroom, transfer to bed, shoes off, re-fit trousers, shoes on, transfer to wheelchair, move to living room, transfer to recliner, shoes off. As a result of all this shoes on/off routine, laces are totally out of the question as I would be tying and untying them around somewhere between 30-40 times a day by the time you add it all up. Buckles are a possible solution but might not be fast enough to get on and off. Velcro is what we have at the moment but over time and with that amount of usage the fluffy side of the velcro tends to go fuzzy and lose its effectiveness after a few months and the shoes are never designed to have the velcro replaced easily.
Foot twisting on transfer - because my wife cannot take any significant weight on her legs when transferring from one chair to another, our routine is a sort of "lift and pivot" which tends to put a lot of lateral twisting on the shoes. If the velcro fastening is getting worn, this almost always results in the shoe twisting off her foot at just the wrong moment an I am then struggling to get the foot back into the shoe while she waits. I was concerned that the Chelsea Boot style with the elasticated sides would not really suit us because of this factor but I would be interested in hearing form any wheelchair users who have tried this style.
I was wondering if there were some other fastening methods which could be used? Perhaps some sort of clip or stud fastening which might work? Designs of velcro which would resist the twisting better? I have a pair of cycle shoes which have the velcro attached to the outside side of the shoe - it passes over the top of your foot, through a flat metal bar and back over the top of the foot again where it sticks. This fastening is designed to hold the cycle shoelaces in place so they don't get caught in the chain and seems to hold up well to twisting because of the "pulley" effect of the bar.
So folks, here is the challenge - what "proper" shoes/boots are there that we could use or get modified that don't look like they were designed by a well-meaning person who has never had to wear them. I am not at all interested in the "cheapest" solution here - I want her to have a good pair of shoes that are easy to get on and off in a hurry but which will stand up to a very high frequency of use.
If you have more questions or want to discuss shoe styles with us that we may have missed, I am subscribed to the thread and will be monitoring it in the UK daytime.
Thanks,
Daniel.
