A few weeks ago, on September 8th, James was fitted for his first pair of AFOs. An AFO, or ankle-foot orthotic, is basically a foot & ankle brace. I was trying to find a good picture of his feet and the picture below is the best recent picture that I could find. In the picture you will notice that his feet point downwards. This is because of his cerebral palsy and muscle tone abnormalities. Even though James doesn’t walk, and probably never will, the AFOs will hopefully help keep his feet in proper alignment.
Today he went with mommy to pick them up. Stacy described them to me, but I really didn’t know what to expect. Hopefully these AFOs should help James keep his ankles and feet in correct alignment. There are different types of AFOs depending on a person’s mobility, but since James will not be able to walk, he got a pair of rigid (or solid) AFOs. If he was able to walk, we would have gone with something that would have allowed some movement in his ankles, like hinged AFOs.
Here are a few pics of James’ AFOs:
Although James’ theme has always been monkeys, I guess that wasn’t an option, so Stacy chose giraffes on the back of the AFOs:
