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Chulalongkorn Medical Journal

Abstract

Background : A large number of diabetic patients wear ill-fitting shoes whichmay either have incorrect width or length. Custom-made shoes arethe choice for diabetic patients because they are uniquely madefor them. The authors aim to obtain the foot dimensions in Thaidiabetes in order to find the foot sizes that they mostly have.The most common foot length sizes that they had were brought tocompare with the sizes of health shoes provided by a Thai shoemanufacture.Material and Method : Diabetic patients who could stand upright with weight bearing onboth feet were recruited into the study. Four foot dimensions whichwere, namely: foot length, foot width, heel width and toe depth ballgirth were measured while the patients were standing upright. Alldata were analyzed and presented as frequencies, means andstandard deviations. The foot width and toe depth data werecomparable to ready-made shoes in the market.Results : This study recruited 144 diabetic patients who were 56 men and88 women. Their average age was 60.27 ± 9.90 years. Foot length,foot width and toe depth in men were 23.20-28.30cm (25.42 ±1.19), 8.70 -12.30 cm (10.28 ± 0.65) and 1.6-2.8 cm (2.18 ± 0.24).Foot length, foot width and toe depth in women were 20.70-25.70cm(23.39 ± 0.99), 8.10 -11.00 cm (9.44 ± 0.55) and 1.35-2.5 cm(1.92 ± 0.23). Most Thai diabetic patients have foot lengths of22.0-25.0 cm. There were 109 men (97.3%) and 120 women (68.5%)whose foot dimensions could be compared with those shoes.The results showed that 94.6% men had shoe-length size in number4 - 8 whereas 68% of the women had shoe-length size in number4 - 6. At the same length, diabetic patients’ feet were wider andlarger than their shoe 54.59% (n=125) in men and 17.47% (n = 40)in women, respectively.Conclusion : Thai diabetic patients mostly have foot lengths of 22.0 to 27.0 cm.Women mostly have foot length of 22.0 to 25.0 cm (90.9%) whereasmost men have foot length of 23.5 to 27.0 cm (91.9%). Variousfoot widths in each foot lengths were noted. More than half ofthe subjects had wider feet than their health shoes’ counterparts.At same shoe length size should have various width sizes in orderto provide more comfort for the patients. Extra-depth should beconsidered when therapeutic insole is added.

Publisher

Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University

First Page

139

Last Page

147

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