- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- And I am Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
Come on, stick with me Brad.
Together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion of course Bob.
- Brad, today we're going to talk about
the Air Cast- air stirrup you got.
And the reason they call it a stirrup,
because it looks like a stirrup
that you might have on horse, right?
- Sure.
- A saddle. So does that look like a stirrup?
- I'm not a cowboy, but yeah,
I think that's what it looks like.
- No kidding you're not a cowboy.
Almost a cowgirl, but anyway,
this is good for providing stability to your ankle
after you've sprained it or after surgery.
We see these very commonly in physical therapy.
- You bet. Yep.
A lot of times doctors will give those out
right from there, and then send them to therapy.
- I, you know, this is by Air Cast,
which I think is a good company. It's a good brand.
But I'm going to tell you right here.
Now this is an older one here.
And one of my criticisms of this,
it's got two air cells.
What do you call them?
[Both] Bladders.
- Yeah. And what's nice about that, it gives a good fit.
I mean, and you can actually add air to these bladders.
You can see the little tubing there, Brad.
- Yep.
- And you can blow on that and it actually blows this up.
You can put it on and then blow it up,
and then let air out until it feels about right.
And then you pull the tube out.
- I want try this Bob.
- Yeah? Okay.
We'll try them in just a minute.
And then that actually seals and holds it in place.
Some of the newer ones.
Now what I've noticed, like we, we bought one
it actually had gel on the bottom and air at the top.
And I was just reading online
they have one that has two air cells that overlap,
and they supposedly give a little pulsating action
when you're walking,
- Interconnected with a,
- Interconnected so that one's kind of pushing air
into the other back and forth.
And it kind of gives a massaging technique to your foot.
Maybe helps with the edema a little bit.
Who knows if it really does.
- It maybe marketing, but I don't,
it sounds like a reasonable assumption.
- Again, I do like the product,
but what it often happens,
this is exactly what's happening here,
is the air bladder after a while
becomes disconnected from this brace shell
- Right.
- Plastic shell.
It's got double side sticking on here.
And it just, I mean, you can put it back in there
and it stays there and it works fine, but it's just
it's a little bit of a pain.
- Yeah.
It's not what I'd like to see.
- Usually by the time that comes up,
hopefully that injury the injury is taken care of.
Now, we do like to use these for really acute injuries.
I've also used them for people after a stroke
if they have just instability,
but they're able to lift the foot right?
I would not use this in sporting events, at all.
- No.
- In that case I would then move up to,
we did a video on the ASO.
If you go to our website
famouspt.com and look for ankle stabilizing orthosis or ASO.
That's a great brace for,
- I've used it. My daughter right now has two
of them for basketball and track. They're great.
- Now these come in, I think three sizes, isn't it?
Small, medium, large, Brad?
- I think so.
- And they also come right left.
Now the little secret that all the therapists know is
now this is ones for the left side.
So, and the way to tell is on the bottom of it there
see that little rounded area there?
Okay. That goes toward the back.
So that's for a left.
If you want to switch it and use it for the right,
all you do is you make it, put it on the right side
and the rounded spot would then go towards the front
towards the toe.
And we do this all the time because we're, you know
we're cleaning them, but sometimes we need to use it
with more than one person.
- Right.
Let's just do a quick little demonstration.
So some people that are not familiar with it.
They're saying, well, what do you do with it?
You're going to put it on like here, around here.
And can you help me out with this Bob?
Just for time to sake.
And this just Velcros very simple.
- Yeah.
- I have a lot of positive comments that people say
boy just makes my ankle feel better
when it's on a good support.
And here's that bladder on this side
I'm going to blow up,
and then you pull it out
and feel it and then tuck that in there.
- Yeah.
Again, which, what I think Brad alluded to
the top two reasons why this works really well.
One is the fit.
The bladder makes it very comfortable.
And two, it is very easy to use.
- Right.
- You don't have to wrap. The ASO is a lot more complicated.
This just about anybody can put on.
- And it allows this motion yet, but stabilizes sideways
which is where you probably sprained your ankle.
- Yeah. And you still can get a shoe on.
Most cases you can get a shoe on here.
It doesn't take up a lot of room.
- Right.
- If you're had a tight shoe to begin with
you may not be able to get it on.
- Right.
- You're swelling too swelling too.
An Air Cast is what this is.
But there's other companies that make similar products.
- There is. But I would probably stick with this one.
I don't know of anybody else.
- Yeah. We've got experience with this.
- Air Cast air stirrup.
All right. Good luck.
- All right.
(jaunty piano music)