Thoughts on Cascade at 25 Years

By Gay Naganuma Burton
Boyer Children's Clinic

Innovation and availability. Those are the two virtues that first come to my mind as I reflect back on the almost 20 years that I've been ordering DAFO's from Cascade. The first, innovation, is probably very obvious to you all. Cascade, under Don's leadership, has demonstrated remarkable innovation in their product design and their casting/sizing process. I think back to when Don first taught me to cast for DAFO's – we were using a jigsaw and routing tool to hand cut each casting footplates out of plywood! Now we use a set of pre-fab, molded footplates that make the casting process super fast and super easy. I most appreciate Cascade's innovation in their creative design of new products. Always responsive to the needs of the kids, Don created a Thumb Thing when therapists asked for a semi-rigid thumb abduction splint. When we asked for shoe inserts for kids with low-toned pronation, Don developed the Hot Dog. The list of cool, new products just goes on and on and on.

The second reason that Cascade is such an amazing resource to our kids and families is how they excel at making their products available to everyone who needs them. When I moved away from Seattle for a short time, I couldn't find an orthotist where I was working who could produce an adequate AFO for the kids I was treating. Because Don had taught me how to cast for DAFO's it was a relatively easy process to obtain splints long distance via the mail. Cascade's commitment to working with each family to obtain funding has been a huge part of access. Development of new, cost efficient products such as JumpStarts is another way Don has made sure functional splinting is available to all of the kids who need it. All of us at Boyer Children's Clinic celebrate our longstanding relationship with Cascade and we congratulate them on twenty-five years of excellence in innovation and availability!