Jaap van Netten

Senior Researcher

Jaap van Netten, PhD, is a human movement scientist from the Netherlands, specialized in clinical research on foot disease. His research focus is on the interplay between biomechanics and behaviour in the prevention of foot ulcers and amputation. This includes real-life and laboratory gait and activity analyses, communication strategies, footwear optimization and e-health solutions for disease detection and behaviour changes.

Van Netten has research and clinical experience from academic and non-academic research settings in the Netherlands and Australia. He works as senior researcher at Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands. He coordinates, supervises and performs numerous research projects on diabetic foot disease. Additionally, he is vice-chair of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF), responsible for writing the international guidelines on diabetes-related foot disease. Nationally he chairs Academic Workplace HOMELAND, a consortium aiming to stimulate knowledge uptake and exchange between academia and (clinical) practice.

A personalised intervention integrating footwear, self-management and education to prevent foot ulcer recurrence in people with diabetes: the DIASSIST multicentre randomised controlled trial

Foot ulcer prevention helps reduce the patient and healthcare burden of diabetic foot disease. To prevent foot ulcers, guidelines recommend patient education, self-management and appropriate foot care and footwear. We designed an integrated multimodal and personalised intervention, integrating pressure-optimised custom-made footwear and indoor-specific footwear, at-home foot temperature monitoring, and, structured education, including motivational interviewing.

We tested the (cost-)effectiveness of this intervention in a multicenter randomized controlled trial, comparing the intervention with usual care. We recruited 126 participants, and followed them for 12 months for clinical, personal and economical outcomes.

In this presentation, I will present the outcomes of this intervention on the reduction of foot ulcer recurrence, the improvements in adherence to wearing footwear, and cost-effectiveness including quality of life.