Lower Extremity Review
The military – a wellness utopia of active and healthy young adults who must maintain fitness and weight standards to remain in good standing. Personnel medical histories are part of vast military databases that practitioners and researchers use to chart trends and examine the evolution of treatments. Unlike with civilian medicine, patients and their outcomes can be followed through years-long stretches, offering a view that is otherwise hard to come by.
By L.W. Barnes
For centuries, the Greeks set the bar for the rest of the world to follow—in architecture, in literature, in medicine. Now they appear to be setting a new kind of example in health care. But we can only hope the rest of the world knows better than to follow their lead this time around.
By Jordana Bieze Foster
Clinicians are already embracing carbon-fiber ankle foot orthoses, which provide a dynamic assist and may even help strengthen calf muscles in patients with foot drop. Now, slowly, research is exploring how these devices can best be used.
by Cary Groner
Researchers have explored numerous offloading strategies to decrease plantar pressures in patients with diabetes, but few have studied whether making a deliberate change to a patient’s walking pattern might have a similar effect on pressure distribution.
by Mansoo Ko, PhD
Evidence suggests that calf muscle stretching, whether manually or with the aid of a brace or splint, can help alleviate plantar fasciitis pain. What’s less clear is which protocol is most effective.
By Neena K Sharma, PT, PhD, CMPT, and Gurpreet Singh, PT
Nowhere are the effects of aging on gait mechanics and neuromuscular control more apparent than on the stairs, an all- too-common site of fall-related injuries in older adults. Prevention starts with understanding the unique demands of stair ascent and descent.
By Alison C. Novak, MSc, Samantha M. Reid, MSc, Patrick A. Costigan, PhD, and Brenda Brouwer, PhD
Preoperative exercise has been shown to improve total knee arthroplasty outcomes, but may not be feasible in patients with severe pain. Bracing and other offloading methods may be able to help.
By John Kenney, CO, and Robert Hamblen, MD
Six months may be too soon to replace – Diabetic insoles may not need to be replaced as frequently as previously thought, according to research from the U.K. presented in September at the second International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics (i-FAB) conference.
Plantar intrinsic foot muscles associated with plantar fasciitis have significantly smaller cross sectional area than those in healthy feet, according to research from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA.
Children treated for clubfoot as infants grow up to be active 10-year-olds who can keep pace with their peers during almost all activities, according to research from the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas.
Altered activation isn’t just at the ankle – Two studies presented at the second International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics conference add to the evidence that treatment of chronic ankle instability should focus on improving feed-forward neuromuscular control mechanisms.
Strength training focused on the pronation and supination affects rearfoot motion in runners to a greater extent than traditional plantar- and dorsiflexion training, according to research from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
Gender differences in leg alignment and muscle activation during a soccer kick may in turn help explain gender differences in knee injury risk, according to research from the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
The Ankle Foot Maximizer (AFX) from Progressive Health Innovations can significantly improve performance in college basketball players, according to research from the University of British Columbia presented in September at the International Foot and Ankle...
Researchers, engineers, and practitioners interested in gait analysis convened at the i-FAB meeting in Seattle to discuss and refine an international consensus statement on standardization of pressure measurement devices that is currently in development. The...
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