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ABSTRACT
Foot health is very important for women. Previous studies have demonstrated that the wearing of high heeled shoes could create high forefoot pressure and cause many foot problems. Metatarsal pads are often used in plantar pressure relief. Therefore, the effects of several different metatarsal pads for high heeled shoes are investigated in this study. There are three tested materials, including bio-gel, polyurethane and EVA. Forefoot pressure, heel pressure, and comfort level are recorded and analyzed. The results show that the insertions of all types of metatarsal pads reduce forefoot peak pressure and increase heel peak pressure during walking. Polyurethane is the most efficient material, which relieves the forefoot peak pressure by 35.54% compared to circumstances without the padding. In addition, the subjective comfort level is significantly improved when the bio-gel pad is applied. The results from this study could be useful in the designing of metatarsal pads for high heeled shoes.
Keywords'. Metatarsal Pad, High Heel Shoe, Plantar Pressure, Comfort
1. Introduction
The foot health of women is very important since many foot problems can be caused by shoes, especially high heels (Coughlin, 1995; Linder and Saltzman, 1998; Snow et al., 1992). Previous studies have proven that high heeled shoes could change plantar pressure distribution and result in high forefoot pressure (Corrigan et al., 1993; Luximon et al., 2012; Mandato and Nester, 1999; Snow and Williams, 1994; Soames and Clark, 1985). High plantar pressure is usually related to discomfort and foot diseases, such as metatarsalgia (Hodge et al., 1999). Therefore, the forefoot is one of the high risk regions for females who are used to wearing high heels (Dawson et al., 2002).
In order to reduce high plantar pressure, various shoe inserts or foot orthoses are often tested by means of experiments (Ashry et al., 1997; Lee et al., 2004; Tsung et al., 2004) and computational models (Chen et al, 2003; Cheung and Zhang, 2008). In general, a few factors have been considered, including shape, material and thickness. Different shapes have been evaluated, such as those of custom-made insoles (Bus et al., 2004; Cheung & Zhang, 2008), total contact inserts (Chen et al, 2003; Lee & Hong, 2005), metatarsal pads (Ashry et al., 1997; Lee and Hong, 2005; Lee et al., 2004;...