Correcting Proprioception Using Appropriate Shoes

If you pass a sheet of paper under your shoes (direction toes-heel), the sheet usually reaches more than a quarter of your foot length, revealing your shoe has a sort of a boat shape to it. However, your bare foot does not have the shape of a boat. There is no reason to transform your perfectly-shaped feet into boat-shaped ones. Boat-shaped feet only favor a running situation but it is not suitable for standing, walking or sitting situations.

The big toe is the guide tool for both walking and standing positions. The consequences for such a functional amputation results in a high price for human health. It induces backpain, unbalance and other painful symptoms. That is the reason why all specialists in posturology need to modify their patients' foot support as a way of treatment. They also should take into consideration that women's footwear is usual worse than men's footwear, which is one of the reasons why backpain is much more frequent in women. We have developed a special type of shoes to address this issue.

Increasing Attention by Furniture Modification

Usual school furniture is aggressive on the proprioceptive system. As so, we decided to modify the usual school furniture by use of sloped desks, limb supports and specially-shaped chairs.

We studied the attention levels of 2 classes composed of 8-year-old children.

In one of them, we used the standard furniture and we equipped the other one with special furniture.

The difference in the results for the two classes lead us to conclude that the non aggressive proprioceptive system furniture can increase attention levels.

In the same study, we also evaluated the number of spelling mistakes and we observed that, before the special furniture, both classes had the same level of spelling mistakes. 4 months after that, the class equipped with special furniture reduced its mistakes 4 times more than the non-equipped class.

We also studied the reading speed and reading ability of both groups. The special-equipped group presented much better results than the non-equipped.

4 months later, we studied both classes and verified that, in the class equipped with our special furniture, there was a reading improvement of 24.4 percent. In the non-equipped class, we verified an increase of only 7 percent, which could easily be due only to the fact that the children were now 4 months older.

We have also been studying the reading speed and the spelling mistakes in another school. The first results are showing a very high performance in the group equipped with special furniture when compared to the non-equipped group. The quantifiable results are still in progress.

Proprioceptive aggression doesn't harm the intellectual level but it can terribly harm the execution level, which is the main factor of learning disabilities.

Correct Standing Position

Some attendees to the San Diego Seminar are asking whether correct standing position is similar for every person or not. Also, they want to know how to assess the short leg situation through a postural point of view.

The situation is as follows:

Both legs are symmetrical concerning the medial plan but opposite concerning the antero-posterior body gravity centre. When we put the right leg behind the shoulders, the gravity centre moves forwards. Also, when we put the left leg behind the shoulders, the gravity centre moves backwards. In case of PDS, the body gravity centre is displaced backwards. In order to correct this anomaly, we must put the right leg slightly behind. This is similar for every person. This is true for usual standing position on a flat surface.

However, when you bend the leg, i.e. to use the stairs, the opposite is true. When people put their right foot on the stairs, the centre of gravity moves forwards. But when people put their left foot on the stairs, the shoulder and the body gravity centre moves backwards.

The majority of short legs are not actual short legs, they are the consequence of asymmetrical muscular tonus. It is a mistake to put a single compensation insole under the short leg because it increases the pression on this limb and enhances the muscle tonus's asymmetry.