Plantar pressure distribution and wearing characteristics of three forefoot offloading shoes in healthy adult subjects

Footwear comfort: a systematic search and narrative synthesis of the literature

“…A wide range of measurement tools have been used to quantify comfort, including simple dichotomous responses [11, 12, 29, 94], ranking footwear conditions in order of preference [14, 31–33, 36, 47, 48, 52, 60, 63–65, 76, 77, 79, 81], 4‐point [42, 80], 5‐point [37, 40, 45, 58, 70, 76, 97], 6‐point [59], 7‐point [47, 64, 79, 87], 9‐point [57] and 12‐point [41] Likert scales, 10‐point numerical rating scales [43, 78], and 100 mm [15, 16, 18–21, 27, 28, 30, 35, 39, 48, 49, 53, 56, 63–65, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 82, 85, 89, 90, 93, 99, 104, 105…”

“…Seven studies evaluated the influence of various aspects of midsole geometry on comfort, including offloading/rocker‐sole footwear (in healthy individuals [43, 66], older people [52], people with diabetes [27, 68] and people with rheumatoid arthritis [29]), and the application of lateral wedges to footwear for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis [44]. In the offloading footwear studies, rocker‐sole shoes were perceived to be more comfortable than standard footwear [29] or forefoot offloading shoes (i.e., shoes with no ground contact at the forefoot designed to avoid toe‐off) [27, 43], and rigid rocker‐sole shoes more comfortable than semirigid rocker‐sole shoes [68].…”

“…Seven studies evaluated the influence of various aspects of midsole geometry on comfort, including offloading/rocker‐sole footwear (in healthy individuals [43, 66], older people [52], people with diabetes [27, 68] and people with rheumatoid arthritis [29]), and the application of lateral wedges to footwear for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis [44]. In the offloading footwear studies, rocker‐sole shoes were perceived to be more comfortable than standard footwear [29] or forefoot offloading shoes (i.e., shoes with no ground contact at the forefoot designed to avoid toe‐off) [27, 43], and rigid rocker‐sole shoes more comfortable than semirigid rocker‐sole shoes [68]. However, no substantial differences in comfort were found across three different heel curvature designs (short‐parallel, long‐parallel and oblique) in running shoes [66], adding foam to the plantar midfoot region of the outersole [52], or following the addition of a small (2 degree) lateral heel wedge designed to alter knee joint moments when walking [44].…”

“…Following title and abstract review there were 120 relevant documents, and after full‐text screening 77 documents were included. The Footwear Science search identified 104 documents which was reduced to 24 after full‐text review, giving a combined total of 101 documents [1, 3, 5, 7, 9–105] (see Fig. 1).…”

“…A wide range of measurement tools have been used to quantify comfort, including simple dichotomous responses [11,12,29,94], ranking footwear conditions in order of preference [14, 31-33, 36, 47, 48, 52, 60, 63-65, 76, 77, 79, 81], 4-point [42,80], 5-point [37,40,45,58,70,76,97], 6-point [59], 7-point [47,64,79,87], 9-point [57] and 12-point [41] Likert scales, 10-point numerical rating scales [43,78], and 100 mm [15, 16, 18-21, 27, 28, 30, 35, 39, 48, 49, 53, 56, 63-65, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 82, 85, 89, 90, 93, 99, 104, 105], 150 mm [22,25,26,36,46,50,55,61,62,66,69,75,83,84,98,100] and 170 mm [44] visual analog scales. The anchor statements indicating the lowest possible comfort score included 'not comfortable at all' [19-22, 25, 26, 30, 39, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56, 61-65, 73, 79, 82-85, 89, 93], 'very uncomfortable' [27,…”