The Best Crutches for Veterans and Why Standard-Issue Falls Short

The Crutches.com Team · 6 min read
A Frame vs in motion forearm crutch

If you've been handed a pair of aluminum crutches at a hospital or VA facility, you probably didn't think much about it. You needed something to walk on, they gave you crutches, you left. That's how most people experience it.

But if you're a veteran who needs crutches for more than a few weeks, and a lot of veterans do, what you're given matters a lot more than most people realize. The wrong crutch, used long enough, doesn't just fail to help. It actively causes new problems.

This post is about why the standard issue falls short, what actually makes a crutch better for long-term use, and what your VA benefits can do to get you something worth using.

Veterans use crutches longer than most people

Musculoskeletal conditions are the most common category of service-connected disability. VA's own benefits reporting has ranked tinnitus and musculoskeletal conditions such as limitation of flexion of the knee and lumbosacral strain among the most prevalent service-connected disabilities year after year. Back problems, knee issues, hip conditions from years of carrying load over tough terrain, and lower leg injuries from training are common in the veteran population.

A lot of these conditions either require surgery and the recovery that follows, or they're long-term chronic situations that mean crutches for months or years.

Standard aluminum crutches were designed for short-term use: a few weeks, maybe a month. Clinical reference material says as much, describing underarm crutches as best for short-term use and forearm crutches as better for long-term use. They weren't built for a veteran managing a post-surgery recovery for six months, or someone with a permanent mobility limitation.

What actually goes wrong with standard crutches

It's not that they don't work. They do work in the most basic sense. The problem is what they do to your body over time.

Your wrists take a beating

Standard crutch handgrips are designed to be cheap and universal, not ergonomic. They hold your wrist at a flat angle with every single step, and the load running through them is not trivial. Instrumented gait analysis measured peak axial crutch force at roughly 45 percent of body weight per crutch during reciprocal walking, and about 57 percent in a swing-through gait (Slavens et al., Gait & Posture, 2007). Over thousands of steps a day, week after week, that repeated loading is what produces the wrist and hand pain a lot of long-term crutch users end up with.

Every step hits hard

There's no shock absorption in a standard aluminum crutch. When the tip hits pavement, that impact goes straight up the crutch into your hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Repeat that all day and the cumulative effect on your upper body is significant.

They're built for hospital floors, not real life

Standard rubber tips are designed for flat, smooth surfaces. Put them on grass, gravel, a sloped driveway, or a wet sidewalk and they lose traction fast. For veterans who want to actually get around in the real world, and not just navigate a clinic hallway, that's a real safety problem.

Underarm crutches can damage nerves

Long-term use of axillary (underarm) crutches can compress the brachial plexus and radial nerve in your armpit, causing numbness, weakness, and tingling in the hand and wrist. It even has a name: crutch palsy. It doesn't happen overnight, but it happens, and it's more likely with poorly designed underarm pads and improper fit.

They just wear you out

Standard crutches give nothing back. Every step is pure upper body effort with no assist from the equipment. The energy cost is measurable: swing-through crutch walking has been measured at roughly 54 percent higher oxygen consumption than normal walking (Hackney et al., Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation). If you're already managing pain, fatigue, or other physical challenges on top of mobility limitations, that constant drain compounds quickly.

What in-Motion crutches do differently

in-Motion crutches were built specifically to solve these problems. Not as a marketing angle, as an engineering goal.

The spring changes everything

The most distinctive feature of in-Motion crutches is the spring-assist mechanism built into the lower post. It absorbs the impact of each step so your wrists and shoulders don't have to, and it returns some of that energy on the upswing so each step takes less effort.

One customer who has been using in-Motion crutches for over 20 years described it this way: the spring pushes back up, removing some of the fatigue that occurs when walking.

The grip is actually ergonomic

in-Motion handgrips are angled and contoured to keep your wrist in its natural position. Not flat. Not forced. That small change, multiplied over every step you take, is what takes the strain off the wrist over months of daily use.

The tip adjusts to the terrain

in-Motion uses an articulating tip that maintains full ground contact at an angle, not just straight up and down. On a slope, on grass, on gravel, on an uneven sidewalk, the tip stays planted. That's the difference between feeling confident on crutches and feeling like you're one bad step from falling.

Built for actual adults

350 lb weight capacity, 1.8 lbs per crutch, and sizes covering most adults. Both standard and large cuff sets ship in the box on the forearm model. Both forearm (E0110) and underarm (E0117) configurations are available, and the products are FDA Registered and Listed. These are specs built for real-world, long-term use.

Your VA benefits can cover this

in-Motion crutches are coded under E0110 for the forearm model and E0117 for the underarm model, the same codes the VA uses to process DME orders. For most veterans with service-connected conditions, getting in-Motion crutches through the VA costs nothing.

The process:

  • Enroll in VA health care if you haven't: va.gov or 1-877-222-8387
  • See your VA provider or a VA Community Care Network provider near you
  • Ask for in-Motion crutches by Millennial Medical (E0110 forearm or E0117 underarm)
  • Your provider includes the brand and code on VA Form 10-10172 when they submit it
  • VA's Prosthetics department fulfills the order

If you're being discharged after surgery, ask for in-Motion on the spot. Community care providers can hand them to you before you leave with no pre-authorization required.

Not sure where to start? Our full guide to VA crutch coverage walks you through the whole process, including the HCPCS billing codes to give your provider.

Free download: What to bring to your appointment

We put together a one-page reference sheet with the product names, billing codes, and a provider script. Print it and bring it with you.

Download the VA Appointment Reference Sheet (PDF)

You've earned better equipment

We started Millennial Medical because we believed veterans and active people deserve crutches built for real use, not just temporary fixes. FDA Registered and Listed, engineered around the load a crutch actually puts through your body, and built to last.

Your VA benefits exist to take care of you. Use them.

Shop in-Motion crutches, or reach out through our contact page if you need help navigating VA benefits.

Be kind. Be generous. Always pay it forward.

Sources

More in the Veterans Series

All six posts in this series are linked below. They're written to stand alone, but they work best together.

All posts are also available on our Veterans hub page.

This guide is part of our VA Benefits Crutches Resource Hub, where you'll find every option for getting crutches covered.

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