Bachelor Assignment

The aim of this thesis was to design a footrest to properly position and fixate patients' feet during an epiphysiodesis. An epiphysiodesis is a surgery that is conducted when children exhibit excessive growth in their feet, where the growth plates in the metatarsals are fused. This surgery is currently only conducted in the Netherlands, leading to a lack of specialised medical instruments to fixate the feet during the procedure. Following the analysis of the footrests' context of use, multiple concepts were developed and evaluated together with the orthopaedic surgeon that issued the footrest. This evaluation culminates in a final concept, leading to the construction and testing of a functional, full-scale prototype. The prototype evaluation test successfully demonstrated the footrest's usability and identified design modifications that can optimise its functionality.