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Re: Donjoy Brace Follow-up - Strap replacement can easily be done by the user...

Posted By: Michael Frind
Date: Thursday, 21 January 2010, at 11:06 p.m.

In Response To: Donjoy Brace Follow-up question (tennisguy)

Dear Tennis,

Of the four strap units on the custom-made Defiance (and also its off-the-shelf siblings, the Legend, 4Titude, and Armor), only one of them actually requires any tools to replace. This one is the one that encircles the leg just below the knee, and which provides two adjustments. The portion running around the front of the leg, and situated just below the patella, determines how far back the hinges sit and only needs to be adjusted once. The portion running around the rear of the leg is (like in any brace) very important for anchoring the brace on the leg. This portion will require adjustment each time the brace is donned and doffed.

All three of the other straps can be replaced simply by undoing the Velcro at the opposite end (i.e. the medial side) from that which is normally used (i.e. the lateral side) when the brace is put on and taken off. These three straps are basically fuzzy material with Velcro tabs at each end.

(Theoretically, if one wanted to double the life of a given strap, one could try reversing each straps. On the medial side, the worn Velcro tab could be sewn to the worn fuzzy material. Then, the other Velcro tab [now located on the lateral side] could be used in the daily donning-and-doffing of the brace. Unfortunately, the design of the straps does not make this very feasible unless additionally fuzzy material is sewn in place in order to cover the sewn-down tab.)

So, there is no need to remove the metal loops (hooks, as you called them). In all cases, the strap is simply looped through them.

If you obtain a set of four replacement straps (of the correct lengths, which DonJoy should be able to provide since they keep your measurements on file; alternatively, you can remove the straps and measure their lengths), then replacing the bottom, top, and second-from-top strap should take you no more than a minute or two. Meanwhile, the leg-encircling strap immediately below the knee requires (as I noted in my previous posting) a tool capable of loosening the two small screw-bolts embedded in the frame. These two little screw-bolts secure a U-shaped metal piece that secures the leg-encircling strap at its centre, thus leaving its two ends free to connect to the loops on the lateral side of the brace. Loosening those little screw-bolts can be done with a simple tool such as a modified slot screwdriver, or a set of fine-point (needlenose) pliers.

Yours truly,
Michael Frind.
Knee Library http://factotem.org/library

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