Offloading of diabetes-related neuropathic foot ulcers at Swedish prosthetic and orthotic clinics.

Practitioners mainly provided the offloading intervention that the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot strongly recommends not be provided, namely, modified off-the-shelf footwear with insoles. In contrast, TCC and nonremovable knee-high walkers, as the gold standards, were vastly underutilized. Therefore, the pattern of providing offloading interventions was almost exactly opposite the recommendations of evidence-based guidelines. Different factors were considered when providing offloading interventions to patients with diabetes-related plantar neuropathic forefoot ulcers. The practitioners' lack of awareness regarding gold standard devices may have contributed to the underutilization of TCC and nonremovable knee-high walkers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.