Pioneering with Dr. Ignacio Ponseti

Dr. Ponseti and John Mitchell with the Ponseti® AFO

Dr. Ignacio Ponseti, an orthopedist from Spain, created the nonsurgical method of correcting clubfoot. His years of experience convinced him that surgical methods of repairing clubfoot actu- ally harmed children.

Over the years, as he worked at the University of Iowa, his research showed promise. What is now known as the Ponseti Method is applied in several phases of treatment (see “Clubfoot Journey” on page 9). This procedure is now considered the touchstone method for treating clubfoot patients around the world.

Today the Ponseti Method is successful in 95% of clubfoot cases worldwide, and since the turn of the century, surgery for clubfoot has declined by as much as 90%.

John Mitchell, inventor and president of MD Orthopaedics, began work at Ponseti’s urgent request for a “boot and bar” orthopedic to marry with Ponseti’s famed non-surgical procedure called the Ponseti Method.

“The shoes available were very inadequate, they were made with stiff soles poorly molded to the foot. And after the treatment you need to have comfortable shoes for the babies to sleep at night and to use in the middle of the day during napping hours. And I was really, again, very desperate trying to find a shoe that would fit the babies with comfort. And here, I talked to John… Of course he was acquainted with plastics and modern technologies that I had no idea of. And he on his own developed this excellent shoe that I needed particularly for difficult feet that we call complex feet and it has been a Godsend really because it has solved the problem of after-treatment of the deformity.“

–I.V. Ponseti, MD