Molded foot support

Abstract

There is provided a foot support conforming to a user's foot. The foot support includes a supportive member defining a front portion, a rear portion and an arch portion for engagement against the foot plantar arch. The rear portion has a concave periphery formed for partial resting abutment of the person's heel. The supportive member is fabricated from thermoplastic material formed to shape in a custom application. Preferred materials are thermoplastic materials providing easily formable shapes that soften or react at a low temperature between and are capable of being molded and shaped with hand pressure to the bottom of the foot while the foot is in a non-weight bearing position. Subsequently the thermoplastic material hardens retaining the molded shape. In a second embodiment, a footbed assembly having a cushioning top layer overlaying the upper surface of the molded supportive member is provided. The invention also contemplates a method for custom forming the supportive member.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] This invention relates to a custom molded foot support and footbed assembly for use in footwear. In addition, this invention relates to a method for forming a custom fitted foot support. [0003] 2. Description of Related Art [0004] Podiatric orthosis, also a type of shoe insoles, are frequently used to a support a person's foot and to aid or correct the accommodative function of the foot when walking. Shoe insoles are often made from a material formed from a resilient semi-rigid sheet of thermoplastic material. [0005] Orthotics serve to properly adjust the orientation of a person's foot during gait, thereby controlling the motion of the foot in view of mitigating the effects of persons having anomalies in a foot. A patent that describes such a podiatric orthosis is U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,511 to Perrault, which describes an insole formed to conformingly fit against the plantar portion of a foot extending from the anterio...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] It has been found that a foot support manufactured as part of a footwear or inserted into the footwear conforming to at least a portion of a user's foot may be custom molded from thermoplastic materials. The custom foot support is molded from a piece of thermoplastic material that may cover the entire bottom of the foot or any portion the foot such as the heel, arch or toe or combinations thereof. Preferably the foot support extends from the heel to just short of the ball of the foot, including the metatarsal arch and is molded to conform to the plantar portion of the user's foot and inserted on top of the existing shoe insole or in some cases replace the existing insole. After custom molding, the foot support defines a monolithic resilient supportive member having inner and outer lateral sides, a front portion, a rear portion and an arch portion. The inner side of the support member has a generally convex shape and provides and corrects the accommodative function of the foot when walking. The outer side of the supportive member has a generally concave shape for occupying less volume inside the footwear; thus enhancing comfort of the person using the foot support.

[0012] In a preferred embodiment, the arch portion of the supportive member is arched for complementary engagement against the foot plantar arch. Moreover, under the resiliency of the supportive member due to the arched shape of arch portion, the latter will have a positive substantially vertical spring-back effect on the foot arch portion during gait, for promoting corrective foot positioning. The front portion is integrally frontwardly extending from the arch portion for complementary engagement near the metatarsal plantar region of the foot. The rear portion has a raised concave periphery formed from the molded material for partial resting abutment of the person's heel onto the sides for engagement around the heel portion of the foot. The cup-like heel seat surrounds the heel to concurrently support the foot which allowing positional self-adjustment of foot support inside the footwear.

[0017] It is an object of the present invention is to provide a foot support for engagement inside footwear and for conformingly fitting against a user's foot for compensating podiatric deficiencies.

[0018] Another object of the present invention is to provide a footbed assembly having a plurality of layers that provide comfort against the skin and cushion the foot against the rigid supportive member.

[0020] Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for forming a molded foot support that is conformingly fitting against a user's foot made from a low temperature softening thermoplastic material.

Problems solved by technology

A problem associated with most shoe insoles is that they are not custom fitted to the wearer's foot.

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