Instructions:
(1) The patient should be wearing the shoes that will be worn when walking.
(2) The tip of the cane should be placed 6 inches (15.24 cm) lateral to the little toe.
Methods:
(1) from floor to top of greater trochanter
(2) from floor to the distal wrist crease with the arm hanging down close to the body
(3) formula 1 using measured body height
(4) formula 2 using arm length
length of the cane in meters by formula 1 =
= (0.45 * (body height in meters)) + 0.087
length of the cane in meters by formula 2 =
= (0.76 * (arm length in meters)) + 0.19
where:
• Arm length = distance from sternal notch to the tip of the middle finger with the arm abducted at 90° and the fingers fully extended.
• The formula using body height on page1174 differs from that in the abstract.
Performance:
• Ideally the elbow should have 20-30° of flexion when using the cane.
• Only a small percentage (8%) of patients fitted using the greater trochanter length had the desired elbow angle.
• 94% of patients fitted using the distal wrist crease had the desired elbow angle.
