Assessing your foot function
Walking is one of those critical, baseline functions that we all need to be able to perform… every single day!
Any trouble walking can mean real difficulty in your everyday work and social activities so it’s something we tend to take seriously and address as a priority. For this reason, foot & gait assessments are an important part of most injury assessments we conduct and we consider almost every injury in the context of how you move, from the ground up.
How well your feet function can either help make your hip, knee or back pain better or worse.
In this type of assessment we’ll typically look closely at your feet, not because the feet cause all back, hip and knee problems (we know that theory is bunk!) but because your feet play an important role in shock absorption and load transfer up the legs and trunk – so how well your feet function can either help make your hip, knee or back pain, better or worse.
You can check out the video below to see what this sort of an assessment might entail.
This sort of gait assessment also gives us some good insight into how the various regions of your body relate to each other and it allows us to test whether improving your foot function can help us offload your hips, knees and back so that even if your feet aren’t the primary problem, they can still be part of your solution.
Want to know more?
You can learn more about our approach to foot & ankle pain and improving function by checking out blogs in the MOH foot & ankle series;
- Osteopathic treatment for foot & ankle pain
- Effective exercises for foot & ankle strength
- Functional exercises for foot & ankle mobility
- Pilates for ankle strength & stability
- Myotherapy for ankle dysfunction
For more information, ideas and exercises check out our Health Tips blog.
