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[Big Sister]

I read about this invention in Sunday's paper.  If you have broken your foot, ankle or lower leg and find crutches difficult to work with, this new product seems to be remarkable in letting you walk without crutches or a walker when you are non-weight bearing because of your injury.

I am not a rep for the company.  Just thought some of you can keep this in  mind if you ever are told to be non-weight bearing on your leg by your dr.

I went to the web site and watched videos of real people with injuries try it for the first time.  Amazing!

[gardenman]

That's different. A couple of areas of concern would be that your bad foot/ankle is sticking out at a ninety degree angle behind you and you're likely to be inadvertently whacking it into things until you adjust to it sticking out eighteen inches or so behind you. (On crutches you control where the bad leg is, on this it's stuck out behind you.) Also the straps have to be kept tight and three tight straps around your leg might impair circulation enough to increase the risk of a deep vein thrombosis (blood clot).  There's also no real world way to catch yourself if there is a misstep where with a crutch you can use your bad leg in a pinch to catch yourself if you're losing control. With this your bad leg is tucked up and strapped in place so there's no chance of your using it in a pinch. It's also putting weight on a part of the knee that's typically not weight bearing. You're essentially kneeling on your knee the whole time you're using the device. My poor old knees can handle me kneeling on them for a few minutes, but any more than that and they start to complain.

I may be unfairly biased in favor of crutches since I've used them off and on since I was two, but I'll stick with my crutches.

[Pook]

While it's interesting, I agree with @gardenman.   I found the freedom crutch while searching for the iWalk and it seems much more stable.  Same concept but the there is one crutch attached to the same type of injured leg device which would balance you better.  I used crutches several times and don't have a problem with them.