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Featured Practitioner | West Coast Pedorthics
Precision Health spoke with Noelle and Beatrice at West Coast Pedorthics to discuss their profession as Pedorthists and how they can benefit the patient...
A Pedorthist is a practitioner who assesses for pain stemming from strucutral issues, specifically coming from someone's foot mechanics. They are different than Podiatrists in the sense that they do not deal with any "foot medical" issues such as cortisone injections, surgeries etc. They also do not deal with any nail or skin care issues associated with the feet, but deal strictly with foot mechanics.
To become a Pedorthist, an undergraduate degree in health studies (eg. kinesiology, etc.) is a requirement (4 yrs), then college for Pedorthics out of the university of Western Ontario, which is a 1 year program. After that, 3000 hours of interning under someone certified to gain clinical hours is required to be able to write the association exams. There is one set of exams after 1.5 years of interning then the last set after 3 years. You have to pass 80% or better on the exams to obtain a passing grade. There are both written and clinical exams.
One thing that differientiates between a Pedorthist and Podiatrist is the training involved, knowing how to manufacture and repair orthotics so they are more qualified to dispense them. Most Pedorthists will have machinery in their offices to do on-site repairs if someone is having problems related to comfort with their foot orthotics.
West Coast Pedorthics prefers a referral from a medical or health care practitioner. They treat many types of injuries with orthotics such as plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonopathy, patellafemoral pain, heel pain, metatarsalgia, mortons neuroma and sometimes hip and back pain depending on the origin of the pain. Since they deal more in the mechanical/architectural rhelm of the feet, they do like to work in an integrated way with other practitioners who deal with soft tissue injuries to support what they are doing. They also use video gait analysis in their assessments so they can slow things down frame by frame, as so much happens at the foot quickly. It is also nice to be able to show somebody what they look like moving so they can fully understand why they may be injured and why they need to stretch, have orthotics made or need other types of conservative care.
West Coast Pedorthics
303-6051 Gilbert Road, Richmond, BC V7C 3V3
Telephone : 604 244.8141
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