I don't know how much of this matters, but for reference, she's female, in her late teens (17-19), of Asian descent, and living in midwest America. She was adopted from China as an infant. I need her to have been wearing the brace from the time she was a relatively young child.
What I need to know is what might have caused this - injury, disease, birth defect, - if she can be expected to be wearing a leg brace for life, or for how long, what times she might be able to take it off and for how long, what physical effects wearing it might have on her, what it would look like, if she would need to walk with a cane, what medical attention she might require pertaining to it (medications, regular checkups, anything like that), and what kinds of things she wouldn't be able to do while wearing it.
I checked the wiki article for orthopaedic braces, Googled combinations of "orthopaedic leg brace", "injury", "birth defect", "disease", "effects", "limitations", and so on. I didn't turn up much of anything useful, but links are definitely appreciated.