Clubfoot Pattern Recognition towards Personalized Insole Design

Personalized insole design is a novel approach for better quality of daily life. In this study we developed a low-cost foot pressure measurement system elaborated for primary care and community hospitals, subsequently the feature extraction and pattern recognition were carried out in order to assist the clubfoot diagnosis. The original data were obtained from 20 adults with normal feet and 30 patients with diagnosed clubfeet. Features such as peak pressure and regional contact area were deduced from 10 anatomically significant areas. It was indicated that, comparing with normal feet, flat feet exhibited larger contact area in midfoot (p<;0.001), and hollow feet showed smaller contact area (p<;0.001) in midfoot. During walking, the highest peak pressure (p<;0.001) and the second highest pressure (p<;0.05) of pollex valgus were found beneath hallux and middle forefoot, respectively, and overall the highest peak pressure of hollow feet was found beneath forefoot. Furthermore, the highest peak pressure (p<;0.001) and the second highest peak pressure (p<;0.05) of pollex valgus for standing were found underneath hallux and lateral forefoot. Our study represented the first steps towards a fully-automated personalized insole design.