The orthotist training does not have school training as an option. You must have - or find - a training agreement with a company to be able to complete it. Start looking for an apprenticeship early.

When you make an insert a splint or a prosthesis you help a person stand walk and live better. People have tried to do that for each other for thousands of years. As an orthotist you stand in a long tradition where craft body knowledge and care meet — and where the goal has always been the same: getting the body to function as well as possible.

§The earliest aids

People have made aids for the body since ancient times. Very old prosthetics are known, including simple wooden and leather toes that made it easier to walk. Crutches, walking sticks and simple splints have existed just as long. The materials were those at hand: wood, leather, iron and later bronze. The aids were rough and personal — often made by a blacksmith, a saddler or a craftsperson who could shape the material.

§War and the need for prosthetics

The need for good prosthetics grew significantly in the wake of wars where many lost arms and legs. It drove both demand and development. Early leg prosthetics were often simple wooden legs, but gradually more advanced solutions came with joints in the knee and ankle, making movement more natural. The need to help many wounded at once contributed to making production more systematic and thus a proper profession.

§How the key players work together to solve a patient's problems

Before modern materials everything was made by hand from wood, leather, metal, and later adhesives and lacquer. A prosthesis or splint was shaped directly to the individual person by measuring, fitting, and adjusting again and again. Impressions of a foot or leg could be taken with plaster. The work required both craftsman's ingenuity and a good understanding of how the body moves and bears its weight – exactly as today.

• 01Materials such as wood leather and metal shaped by hand.
• 02Plaster impression to capture the shape of a foot or leg.
• 03Adjustment by trying, adjusting and trying again.
• 04Assistive devices made personally for the individual user.

§New materials change the trade

In the course of the 1900s, completely new materials came: light metals, plastic and later carbon fibre and advanced foams. They made aids lighter, stronger and more durable than wood and leather ever were. At the same time, it became possible to shape the materials using heat and moulding, so they could be precisely adapted to the body. A modern insole or modern prosthetic weighs a fraction of what the old solutions did — and functions far better.

§The digital age

In recent times, digital tools have become part of the trade. You can scan a foot or body part three-dimensionally and use the data to produce aids with great precision, and advanced prosthetics can today contain electronics that make the joints move more naturally. But even though technology has come far, it is still the orthotist's understanding of the individual and their needs that determines whether the aid actually works in everyday life.

§The craft today.

Today orthopaedist is an independent craft profession with formal education. You manufacture and fit aids such as insoles splints bandages corsets and prostheses and you do it in close dialogue with the person who will use them. You combine thorough craftsmanship with knowledge of the body's anatomy and movement — and with the ability to listen to what the user really needs. The long history from ancient wooden legs to today's scanned prostheses is always about the same thing: giving people the ability to move and live as freely as possible.

“An aid is only good if it fits the person who will use it — that has been the orthotist's task for thousands of years.”