Surgery: splint – brace – or bandage – Orthopedic bandage – Splint or brace
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-23
2003-04-15
Brown, Michael A. (Department: 3764)
Surgery: splint, brace, or bandage
Orthopedic bandage
Splint or brace
C602S021000, C128S878000, C128S879000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06547752
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of orthotic devices and appliances; more particularly to orthotic devices and appliances useful for restoring movement to a connective joint of a mammalian body; and still more particularly to orthotic devices and appliances used to reverse contractures due to immobility and neurological dysfunction of a human patient's hand and fingers.
2. Background Discussion
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines “orthotics” as “a branch of mechanical and medical science that deals with the support and bracing of weak or ineffective joints or muscles.”
Orthotic devices and appliances, commonly referred to just as “orthotics” (in spite of the broader dictionary definition of orthotics), have been utilized for many years by physical therapists, occupational therapists, and certified orthotic fitters to assist in the rehabilitation of loss of range of motion (LROM) of patients' joints and associated limbs or adjacent skeletal parts of the patients' body.
Orthotics, as well as splints, have been designed both to maintain and to restore the range of bodily motion due to LROM. Such loss of range of motion may, for example, be caused by traumatic injury, joint or limb surgery, contracture due to immobilization caused by neuromuscular disorders (e.g., stoke and closed head injury) and other disease processes that significantly limit a patients ability to use a joint for normal activities of daily living (ADL).
Two fundamentally different types of contractures exist which clinically should have two different treatment protocols. The difference in these two types of contractures is the basis for the clinical techniques and design of the orthotics of the present invention that will be described below.
A first one of these two fundamentally different types of contracture may be defined as a fixed, high resistance of muscle to passive stretch resulting from fibrosis of the muscles and joints, or from disorders of the muscle fiber resulting in LROM, for example, of a patient's hand and fingers. In this regard, Webster's Dictionary defines “contracture” as “a permanent shortening (as of muscle, tendon and scar tissue) producing deformity or distortion.”
This first type of contracture is usually due to trauma, injury, or surgical intervention affecting the joint, as may be typical of sports injuries and the treatment thereof. As the injured tissue heals, edema, post trauma or surgically affected tissue regeneration and other natural healing processes result in fusing together of what were, prior to the trauma, separate, pristine connective tissues, that is, the collagen fiber matrix, capable of easily gliding over one another, as is needed for normal joint movement and related muscle elongation.
However, post-trauma, this collagen fiber matrix becomes random and irregular, and neither elongates nor stretches compared to non-traumatized collagen fibers. This fusing-together or adhesion of connective tissue structures (e.g., ligaments, tendons, synovial membrane, fascia and fibrous joint capsules) is the result of the tissues being invaded by developing undifferentiated scar between adjacent tissue, thereby diminishing or preventing the mutual gliding after early healing of the trauma or post-surgical trauma has been accomplished.
This post-trauma matrix condition, as well as the above-mentioned normal matrix condition, is depicted and discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,891,068 and 6,001,074 to John P. Kinney, one of the present inventors. These two patents are hereby incorporated in their entirety in this application.
Such fusing together of connective tissue is a leading cause of lags (a non-specific indictment of the motor system's failure to move the affected joint through the full available passive range) relating to tendon gliding, depending on their strategic placement in reference to structures crossing the joint.
With limited mobility and associated extensor muscle atrophy, combined with the formation of adhesions and scar tissue in the form of a significantly increased number of joined fiber matrix junctions, the muscle fibers become shortened.
The restoration of full range of motion where fibrosis of the muscle fiber with scar tissue and adhesions are present requires that the adhesions and scar tissue or fused fiber matrix junctions be “worked through” or broken to restore normal functional elongation or stretch.
The term “no pain, no gain” (of increased range of motion) is associated with the process of breaking through joined or fused fiber matrix junctions to restore full elongation of the connective tissue, tendons and muscles associated with the trauma-affected joint.
Heretofore known orthotics are primarily designed to treat this first type of contracture, but have also been used to treat contractures caused by immobility and neurological dysfunction (described below). However, such orthotic devices are not, as far as is known by the present inventor, best suited for such additional purpose.
The second and very different type of contracture results from joint immobility—not joint-related trauma or surgical repair of a joint. Contracture resulting from immobility is simply a shortening and thickening of the connective tissue, tendons and muscles that restrict the ROM of a joint. In such situations, the muscle fibers still retain their original uniform shape and there are no adhesions or scar tissue or significantly increased joined fiber matrix junctions to break through in order to restore full range of motion.
In contrast to trauma-caused contractures, contractures due to immobility do not need a “no pain, no gain” approach to restore the normal range of motion, and, in fact, such an approach can actually do more harm than good. As mentioned above, the collagen fibers of a contracture due to immobility are simply shorter and thicker, and will respond to appropriate stretching techniques and motion of the joint to restore LROM. The stretching technique usually used for contractures caused by immobility is Range Of Motion (ROM) Therapy and the use of Low-Load Protracted Stretch/Stress (LLPS) or “extended stretch” static or dynamic orthotic devices.
According to authors Kenneth R. Flowers and Susan L. Michlovitz in their article titled “ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF LOSS OF MOTION IN ORTHOPEDIC DYSFUNCTION” (published in Postgraduate Advances in PHYSICAL THERAPY, American Physical Therapy Association, 1988 II-VIII), Total End Range Time (TERT) in conjunction with LLPS is the key to restoring full ROM.
All contractures, whether caused by injury, surgery, or immobility, limit range of motion of the affected joint and make simple activities of daily living, such as eating and self-dressing, more difficult, if not impossible. Moderate to severe contractures can be debilitating, and can leave afflicted individuals unable to care for themselves in the most basic daily living tasks. Even mild contractures due to immobility can progress to severe contractures if proper intervention is not prescribed and implemented so long as the immobility continues. The main function of my new and more effective orthotic devices is to treat contracture due to immobility-not trauma related to surgery or injury.
The above-cited Kenney patents disclose a variety of orthotic devices particularly useful for treating contractures of arms, hands, legs, feet, neck and back due to immobility.
The main function of my new and more effective orthotic devices is to treat contracture due to immobility-not trauma related to surgery or injury. In this regard, contractures and other hazards of immobility are one of the ten current highest health care costs in America that are totally preventable. This puts the health risks associated with immobility in the same category as cigarette smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, and automobile accidents in financial impact on American health care costs.
Recent managed care cost reimbursement decisions have, however, drastically limited professional therap
Holland Marlan J.
Kenney John P.
Brown Michael A.
Lambert Howard R.
Soft Wear, Inc.
Thanh Quang D
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