Accidentally accessible product review -- Vibram Five Fingers, the shoes with toes

November 5, 10:19 PMNY Special Needs Kids ExaminerLeslie O'Donnell

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the NY Special Needs Kids Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

This is just one of a variety
of styles available.

You know how sometimes you're shopping for a certain kind of something, and you spend what feels like forever, hunting through specialty store after specialty store, along with everywhere else something like whateveritis, is likely to be?  You know how sometimes after you've been unsuccessful more times than you thought possible, and you're about to make your partner exceedingly if temporarily giddy, by foreswearing ALL shopping, because you just can't take it any more....you happen to glance over at a random storefront you'd never have thought you had reason to look in, and you just happen to see EXACTLY what you needed?  Maybe it was never meant to be what you needed, but by golly, you are going to use it that way, and nothing is going to stop you, because it's perfect, damn it, and after you wasted all that time......

Trying to find just the right thing to (you hope) meet a need of your special needs child, can prove to be remarkably similar to that.  Oh, sure, there are a wide variety of products and ideas available for sale these days, advertised for every disability anyone has heard of.  Where there's a marketing niche, there's a manufacturer...that's the result of capitalism, when not activism.  But sometimes, because disability-related wares are intended for what's already a small subsection of potential buyers, those wares are designed to appeal to the most generalized needs of that subsection.  When the special needs are a little more....specialized....than that, sometimes the only way to find what you need, is to shop outside the box.  Mainstream specialty products, sometimes because they are one quirk ponies, can turn out to be the perfect fit.  They can be the sort of thing you'd almost have to imagine with one particular person in mind.  And, when they are the sort of thing few people can tailor-make at home for themselves, finding such a product that's ready-made seemingly as if for you, either as-is or with only minor adjustment, can be a real blessing.  I call such products -- which were not designed with the disabled in mind, but which fill in a blank in the readily available disability wares -- accidentally accessible.

One such line of products is Vibram Five Fingers, otherwise known as, "Those shoes with toes."  Intended to offer the benefits of going barefoot without the risks of having your feet unprotected, this rather distinctive footwear is thought of as the shiny new toy of sports and fitness fanatics.  (They even got a nod in a recent strip about triathlete comic character Frazz.)  The company website recommends, "Wearing FiveFingers for exercise, for play, and for fun. Stimulating muscles in your feet and lower legs will not only make you stronger and healthier, it improves your balance, agility and proprioception."  But wait....WAIT!  Ask most people what the 6th sense is, after sight (vision), hearing (audition), taste (gustation), smell (olfaction) and touch (tactition), and they are going to start thinking of spoiler-happy friends whispering, "Bruce Willis is dead!"  As it happens, there are actually a number of science-accepted senses beyond the traditional five, before you get into anything supernatural.  It's just that the proprioceptive sense is one of those things that the everyday person doesn't tend to realize they know about, unless that everyday person is dealing with a neurological impairment. Hmmmm...

Yeah, I bet you see where I'm going with this now.  "Stimulat[ion of] the muscles in your feet and lower legs to build strength and improve range of motion," as well as aid developing, "An increased sense of balance, greater agility, and visibly improved posture" is useful for far more than things like yoga and running, water sports and mountain climbing.  For many of those with special needs, that would be useful for simply moving around, period.  I'm thinking of those with walking abnormalities caused by diseases or injuries to the legs, feet, brain, spine, or inner ear.  I'm thinking of conditions that specifically affect gait.  I'm also thinking of things like Cerebral Palsy, Sensory Processing Disorder, and other conditions which have an impact on movement.

Five Fingers are not, alas, an option for everyone's feet.  They are meant to be worn directly against the sole, so those who need orthotics will find the point to be moot.  The design does not accommodate webbed toes (syndactyly) or more than the usual number of toes (polydactyly), and the company does not currently do custom patterning.  And, while the company hopes to expand its range of sizes in the future, they currently do not offer the shoes in sizes that would serve babies, toddlers, or younger children.  The website advises that, "FiveFingers start at size 34 for women, which equates to an 8 & 1/8th inch foot length. This is too big for most children but many youth sizes can fit into our smaller women’s models. Select any model of FiveFingers to view our size conversion chart to see if your child’s foot can fit."

All the same, I'd say that this product, accidentally or otherwise, still puts the mobility-impaired one step ahead.