These devices – including shoe inserts, braces, and artificial limbs (both arms and legs) – provide the support children need to meet their full potential and pursue their dreams, whether that’s swimming in a race, throwing a baseball, playing an instrument, or just keeping up with their friends.
Children are our only focus. We understand the unique requirements of their growing bodies and how those requirements change and evolve as children get older.
POPS is onsite at every Shriners Children's location. The close relationship between our staff and a center's medical staff allows us to work together to evaluate a child's needs and abilities. Using the information they gather, POPS experienced, accredited orthotists and prosthetists will create a custom device that's the most effective and least restrictive for a child, typically in days instead of weeks.
We support children with a range of genetic and acquired pediatric conditions and provide a full range of orthotic and prosthetic services, including upper and lower extremity prosthetic care, scoliosis bracing and pediatric orthotic services. Several of our locations can also provide cranial remolding helmets for the treatment of plagiocephaly. All POPS locations can complete device fittings and adjustments, as well as minor repairs, and emergency fabrications when they're needed.
A visit to POPS is more than measurements and mechanics. It’s about sharing hopes and dreams and providing the orthotic or prosthetic with the fit and function a child needs at that moment. We're devoted to designing braces, artificial limbs and adaptive devices, fitting upper and lower limb prostheses and orthoses with an emphasis on exceptional fit, comfort and appearance that improve function and mobility, reduce pain and allow children to live life more independently.
For the teen attending a prom, that might be a prosthetic leg that slips into high heels. For a swimmer, it may be a prosthetic arm to perform the breaststroke. For the violinist, it could be an adaptive to grip the bow. In all instances, we want to maximize their abilities and their self-confidence, opening a new world of possibilities.
Here you can learn more about the pediatric orthotic and prosthetic services we offer and how to best prepare for a visit to one of our local POPS facilities.
Specific treatments and services may vary by location. Please contact a specific location for more information.
Orthotics (also called orthoses) are custom braces that support and protect a part of a child’s body. These stabilizers can range from a custom insert in a shoe to a full-leg or trunk brace.
Prosthetics (also called prostheses) are also custom. They replace a limb or extremity that may have been absent at birth, an amputation from trauma, or an amputation as a result of a disease. Prosthetics can range in size and complexity, from a foot or hand to a complete arm or leg.
Using noninvasive, advanced computer aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) technologies, we’ll collect detailed images of your child’s limbs, extremities and/or spine, and at some locations, their head. We then modify those 3D images and send them electronically to one of our two fabrication centers, one on each coast, where we manufacture the device using the most advanced materials. The completed device is sent back to POPS, where it's custom fitted to your child.
The technology, along with the skills of our orthotists and prosthetists, allow us to fabricate exact pediatric orthotics and prosthetics that consider a child’s specific needs and body mechanics. Because we build all the pediatric specialty orthotics and prosthetic devices listed below in two facilities, we can easily apply all we’ve learned from all the devices and orthoses we’ve built. As a result, your child gets a well-designed, accurate device, and often gets it faster, sometimes in days instead of weeks.
Does your child have a favorite color, hobby or sports team? Many of the orthotics and prosthetics we build can be further customized during fabrication. Children can decorate the surface of their leg brace or limb sockets with a range of colors, cartoon characters, sports teams, princesses, camouflage, etc.
Many children visit POPS the same day they're seen by a Shriners Children’s doctor, which means no time lost scheduling another appointment or driving somewhere else.
Patients typically meet with multiple people at their first visit, including a prosthetist/orthotist, an occupational or physical therapist and a social worker. This multidisciplinary approach means your child, and you, are supported by a team that designs and executes the right treatment plan for your child.
Often, to fully understand your child’s needs and abilities, we’ll want to watch them walk, pick up items or perform other activities. In addition to bringing comfortable clothing – shorts, a T-shirt or tank top and tennis shoes – please bring your child’s existing device, if they have one, even if they no longer wear it or it doesn't fit. We’ll take a close look at it, watch your child put it on and adjust it, and discuss any issues that come up during normal wear.
Does your child play a sport or an instrument? What do they want to do? It’s extremely helpful for us to hear from those who interact with your child when they are, or are not, wearing a device. What do they do well? What do they have trouble with? Gather some notes, and your questions, and bring them with you.
Working together, our practitioners and your child’s medical team will determine the most appropriate device for you child. Often, measurements, scans and casts are taken and sent to one of our two fabrication centers the same day.
You’ll return with your child once the device has been made. This appointment, and sometimes additional visits, will allow us to properly fit and adjust the device to your child. During this visit, you and your child will also be instructed on a device’s proper wear and use.
Many Shriners Children’s locations have on-site motion analysis centers. Partnering with the motion analysis center team allows POPS to take advantage of their knowledge and the technologies they use. Working together often provides additional details and direction to better evaluate your child’s needs and the effectiveness of their device and make delicate adjustments to those devices.
JoAnne Kanas:
Welcome to POPs, also known as Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services. The mission of POPs, like Shriners Children's is to provide the best orthotic and prosthetic care to all of our patients in every location throughout the U.S. and around the world. Our care is provided regardless of a family's ability to pay. POPs is a separate LLC from Schriners Children's, yet it is solely owned and controlled by Schriners Children's.
Prior to the start of this program in 2014, each Schriners Children's location had their own orthotics and prosthetics program. Our new program ensures a consistent high-quality device for all of our patients. Our patients are seen in their local Schriners Children's location with the medical team and the POPs team. Depending on their medical needs, interests, hobbies and goals, the team determines which device each patient needs. Now, instead of having that device made locally, we utilize computer-aided design, and most of our devices for our patients are custom fabricated at two locations, one in Tampa and the other at Schriners Children's Portland.
Brad Mattear:
Here at our fabrication center in Tampa, we produce custom devices for over 17 Schriners Children's locations. We oversee the digital CAD technology used to capture images of the children's extremities and torsos. All devices go through a rigorous quality assurance review prior to leaving our facility and returning to the prescribing hospital. This ensures all of the devices produced are completed in a timely manner and delivered to our locations across the country and the world to meet each child's clinical needs.
With CAD technology, our highly qualified practitioners are able to take a scan of the child's affected body part and do modifications to the shape while still in the room, they can modify a patient's scan to the millimeter and send that data electronically from anywhere across the country or the world to our facilities in Tampa or Portland. What used to take a couple of hours to complete, we can have modified and into production within 20 minutes.
JoAnne Kanas:
It's great that POPs has the ability to provide whatever orthotic and prosthetic is needed for each patient. Throughout our system, Shriners Children's strives to keep up with technology so that our patients can achieve their goals and dreams.
Brad Mattear:
Everything that we do at POPs is individualized to the child. With the advancements in the components of prosthetics, we design legs for sprinting, swimming, playing instruments, whatever activity interests our patients. From weightlifting to playing the violin, to competing in high-level sporting competitions, our amazing patients are meeting their goals with these specially adapted devices. We have all the tools and technology we need to meet our patient's special requests.
JoAnne Kanas:
This lab is truly state-of-the-art. It was designed to take into account safety, function, and the most efficient workflow to ensure that this facility is one of the best throughout the country.
Brad Mattear:
Once we receive the child's measurements digitally, we have the ability to have their devices completed in under 24 hours when there's an emergent need. There's a pride that Shriners Children's has always been on the forefront of technology in the pediatric orthotics and prosthetics industry.
JoAnne Kanas:
Our highly qualified POPs team members are solely focused on pediatrics. They understand the unique requirements of children's growing bodies and how those requirements change and evolve as children get older. Whether they're seeing patients at our locations or working behind the scenes of fabrication, these professionals are dedicated to our mission and seeing your child achieve their dreams.
Everyone in my school knows I wear a back brace. It’s really no big deal. I just want other patients to know that it’s OK to wear your brace. It could make a difference, like it did for me.
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