WEIGHT BEARING STATUS - any protocols????

[lizdyer]

Our orthopaedic team is trying to standardize information given to patients about their weightbearing status e.g. claryifing what NWB, Partial weight bearing and touch toe weightbearing means. Do you have any information?

[Tors]

At Llandough Hospital in Cardiff we use NWB to mean the whole foot must be completely off the ground, Toe Touch (TTWB) to mean the toes may touch the floor only for balance and no body weight can go through the leg, Touch or Egg-shell (TWB / ESWB) to mean that the whole foot can be placed to the floor but only the weight of the leg can be rested on the floor and no body weight can be applied (eg less than 20kg WB), PWB means they can weight-bear to 50% of their body weight and FWB to mean that there are no restrictions (ie the patient can put their full body weight on that one leg). We obviously still get weight bear as pain allows or mobilise as able in the op-notes but we read those to mean FWB and use walking aids as required! We don't use scales and rely on clinical judgement to determine whether patients are doing what they should be. I have thought about purchasing one of the weight-bearing monitor devices available from Homecraft but they're very expensive!!!!