A Tale of 2 Footies
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Time for a pedograph, folks. What do we have here?
To review :
Let’s divide the foot into 3 sections: the rear foot, the mid foot and the fore foot.
First of all, are they symmetrical? Look carefully at the fore foot on each side. NO! the right foot looks different than the left, so we are looking at asymmetrical pathology.
Let’s start at the rear foot: The heel teardrop is elongated on both sides, slightly more on the right; this means incraesed calcaneal eversion (or rearfoot pronation) bilaterally, R > L. The right heel shows increased pressure (more ink = more pressure).
Next up, the mid foot. Similar shapes, more pressure and printing on the left. Did you notice the “tail” of the 5th metatarsal printing, giving it a wider print? This person is staying on the outside of their foot longer than normal, right (more ink) more than left.
How about the fore foot? Lots going on there.
Lets start on the left
Notice the mild increased printing of the 5th and 4th metatarsal heads. Force should be traveling from lateral to medial here, as the foot goes into supination. A relatively normal amount of pressure on the head of the 1st metatarsal.
Now look at the toes. Notice that space between the 2nd and 3rd? This gal had an old fracture and has an increased space between them.
Now how about the right?
Increased pressure on most of the heads with a concentration on the 1st metatarsal. Hmmm…what would cause that? this is typical of someone who has a 1st ray (cunieform and metatarsal) that is hypomobile, such as with someone with a forefoot valgus (as this person does) or a dropped 1st metatarsal head (which is usually rigid, as is NOT the case here).
Did you see that rpinting at the medial aspect of the proximal phalanyx of the hallux (ie. big toe)? This gal externally rotates the lower extremity to push off the big toe to propel herself forward. This is because the 1st metatarsal head hits the ground BEFORE the 5th (as we would normally expect to see, like in the left foot), and because the weight is now on the outside of the foot, she need to push off SOMETHING.
Getting better at this? We hope so. Keep reading the blog and look at some of our past pedograph posts here.
The Gait Guys. Teaching you about the importance of gait, each and every day!
