York Study of Unloading Shoes for Vascular Intermittent Claudication

Some people experience a cramp-like leg pain during walking that is relieved only by rest. This is called intermittent claudication (IC) and it is a common symptom of peripheral arterial disease. Patients with IC struggle to walk, which in turn lowers their quality of life. The intensity of IC pain experienced during walking depends on several factors, including the type of footwear worn. For example, non-supportive shoes may make the calf muscles work harder during walking, leading to earlier and more-severe symptoms of IC. A member of the research team has developed a shoe that reduces the work done by the lower-leg muscles during walking. Preliminary data indicate that, when wearing these "unloading shoes", people with IC were able to walk further without pain as compared with when wearing a normal pair of shoes. The current project aims to provide further information on the usefulness and acceptability of these shoes. Forty people with IC will complete a set of three walking tests on two separate occasions; once whilst wearing the unloading shoes, and once whilst wearing some normal shoes. The participants will then be given a pair of unloading or normal shoes to wear for two weeks, after which we will collect information on how acceptable the shoes were to wear via a survey of all participants and one-to-one interviews with a subset of participants.