Selected soft-tissue research: an overview from carville

Studies are underway on the effect on insensitive feet of repeated, "normal," nonischemic pressure, such as that caused by walking. Although such stress does not harm normal tissues, it can lead to soft-tissue damage in the insensitive foot. This research is trying to determine such information as the amount of energy input required to damage soft tissue, microscopic and macroscopic changes that occur during early soft-tissue damage, importance of time sequence of energy input, and amount of energy input that causes hypertrophy rather than ulceration. The progress of these studies is reported.