Footwear system for ulcer or pre-ulcer detection

[0052] An illustrative embodiment adds intelligence to the footwear to warn the user of foot ulcers and prefoot ulcers. To this end, the footwear has a plurality of temperature sensors that cooperate with a map generator to generate a graph representing the actual geometry and size of a person's foot (e.g., the sole) and the temperature distribution across the foot. temperature map of the patient. Correspondingly, because the temperature Figure 1 are generally anatomically accurate, so illustrative embodiments can more precisely identify hotspots for emerging foot ulcers and / or prefoot ulcers. Details of illustrative implementations are discussed below.

[0053] figure 1 Schematically shows a bottom view of the sole of a human foot 10 (this person is also referred to as a "patient") undesirably having an ulcer 12 and an anterior ulcer 14 (described below and shown in phantom because Pre-ulcer 14 does not break the skin). As one would expect, an ulcer 12 at this site on t...