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Footwear Options for Stable Eschar on a Heel Wound

Jennifer A Gardner, PT, DPT, MHA, CWS

January 18, 2013

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Question

Can patients wear shoes with stable eschar?

Answer

Typically, when a patient has stable eschar, you want to protect the eschar.  So what we recommend just depends. One of our surgeons here in the wound center does not want a patient walking at all wheather they have eschar or any other type of heel wound. He advises this even if it is on the posterior aspect and not a surface that they will actually ambulate on. But, what we frequently recommend is that the patient get some kind of heel relief shoe. Consider the need for offloading. A company called Darco® makes a Darco® OrthoWedge with heel relief so that if a patient has a heel ulcer, they can wear this, and it would keep the pressure off the heel until it is healed.  Typically, we do not want them wearing shoes even though it is stable eschar.  Wearing shoes and putting pressure on it can make it go from stable to unstable.  You really want to keep the pressure and the weight off of it until it heals completely.  


jennifer a gardner

Jennifer A Gardner, PT, DPT, MHA, CWS

Dr. Gardner has been a physical therapist for 15 years with the last 10 concentrated solely on wound care. She became a Certified Wound Specialist in 2001 and recently successfully passed her re-certification in October 2011. Currently, Dr. Gardner is employed at Underwood-Memorial Hospital as the Manager of Wound Care Services, supervising both inpatient wound care and the outpatient wound center. In addition, she has been adjunct professor at College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN for the last 7 years, teaching Integumentary to doctoral physical therapy students.  Dr. Gardner has presented both nationally and internationally on various wound care topics and continues to participate in research studies on new concepts in wound healing.


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