By Jordana Bieze Foster
Moderate to severe medial knee osteoarthritis (OA) is associated with limited range of motion at the midfoot and hallux during barefoot walking—gait alterations that may influence the effects of footwear and orthoses in this population, according to research from Australia.
Investigators from the University of South Australia in Adelaide used 12 motion analysis cameras to assess multisegment foot kinematics during barefoot walking in 15 patients with medial knee OA (five with Kellgren-Lawrence grade 3 for radiographic severity; 10 with grade 4) and 15 age- and gender-matched controls.
They found that the knee OA patients had significantly less coronal plane range of motion at the midfoot and significantly less sagittal plane range of motion at the hallux compared with the controls.
The findings, epublished on September 4 by The Knee, may have implications for the use of footwear and foot orthotic interventions to decrease knee loading in patients with knee OA and may help explain why some foot-focused interventions appear to have different effects in healthy volunteers than in patients with symptomatic knee OA.
Source:
Arnold J, Mackintosh S, Jones S, Thewlis D. Altered dynamic foot kinematics in people with medial knee osteoarthritis during walking: A cross- sectional study. Knee 2014 Sep 4. [Epub ahead of print]
