By Aasra Editorial Team | India's First Adaptive Clothing Brand
Aasra has served thousands of patients and caregivers across India since 2020, providing adaptive clothing that makes dressing independent and dignified for people recovering from surgery, dealing with disability, or facing the challenges of old age.
There is a moment familiar to anyone who has broken a leg. You come home from the hospital in a below-knee or above-knee plaster, you go to change out of the clothes you were admitted in, and you realise that nothing you own will go over the cast.
Most people solve this with scissors. They cut the side seam of a pyjama, wear it for six weeks, and throw it away afterwards. It works, it looks obviously improvised, and it destroys the garment.
Why a cast defeats ordinary trousers
A plaster cast adds significant bulk and, more importantly, it is rigid. A trouser leg has to be wide enough to pass over the widest point of the cast, and the leg inside cannot bend to help. An above-knee cast or a hinged knee brace makes it impossible with anything short of very wide pyjamas.
External fixators, where pins protrude from the limb, rule out pulling fabric over the leg entirely. Nothing should be dragged across pin sites.
Side-opening is the design that solves it
Side-opening pants open along the entire length of both legs with velcro. You lay them flat, position the casted leg on top without threading it through anything, and close the sides around it. The cast never has to pass through an opening, because there is no opening to pass through.
This works for below-knee casts, above-knee casts, hinged knee braces, walking boots and external fixators, and it means the same garment fits before and after the cast comes off. For warm weather, tearaway shorts work identically, and there is a women's version.
Buy one size up. A cast is bulkier than you expect and the limb underneath may be swollen, particularly in the first two weeks.
Arm fractures and slings
An arm in a cast and sling has the opposite problem: the sleeve. You cannot bend the elbow to thread the arm through, and if the shoulder is also involved you cannot lift the arm to start.
Side-opening t-shirts let you put the injured arm in first without any lifting, then wrap and close the rest. Many people find they can keep the sling on throughout, which matters because refitting a sling correctly is fiddly and doing it wrong affects healing position.
The alternative most people fall back on is wearing an oversized shirt draped over the injured side, which is fine at home and awkward everywhere else.
Keeping the cast dry and the skin intact
Plaster must stay dry. A wet cast softens, loses its shape and stops supporting the fracture, and it can cause skin problems underneath where you cannot see them. Clothing that can be removed without dragging over the cast reduces the number of times you disturb it.
Do not push anything down inside a cast to relieve itching, however tempting. Knitting needles, pens and scales are a common cause of hidden skin wounds that are only discovered when the cast comes off. If the itching is unbearable, or if you notice a smell, new pain, numbness or discolouration in the toes or fingers, contact your orthopaedic team rather than improvising.
Getting around
You will be on crutches or a walker. Two clothing points follow from that. Avoid long, loose trouser legs that can catch under a crutch tip. And wear slip-on footwear on the good foot, since balancing on one leg to fasten a shoe is exactly how people acquire a second injury.
How long you will need it
Most simple fractures are in plaster for four to eight weeks, longer for the femur and for surgically fixed fractures. Physiotherapy usually follows, during which the limb is often still swollen and stiff, so loose adaptive clothing stays useful for a few weeks after the cast is off.
Our adaptive lowers and adaptive uppers include the side-opening designs that fit over casts, braces and fixators. Everything is 100% cotton, in sizes M to 2XL, with free shipping and cash on delivery across India. Our size guide explains how much to size up for a cast, and we make custom sizes if your cast is unusually bulky.