"Good" and "evil" forms of flat feet in children

Initially, at birth, all children flat foot. But that doesn't mean there is a problem. It's just that there is a lump of fat in the foot, it seems normal from the point of view of bone structure. Flat feet as a result may appear in about 20% of cases.

Many adults with "good" flat feet are not even aware of their diagnosis, because most of the position of their arch of the foot is normal.

Flat feet are defined by two parameters: the mobility of the joints of the foot and the presence of symptoms. It has four options: mobile asymptomatic, mobile symptomatic, rigid asymptomatic, and rigid symptomatic.

Symptomatic means that there are complaints, in particular, pain in the feet, poor exercise tolerance. With mobile symptomatic flat feet, there are no problems with foot mobility.

With rigid symptomatic flat feet, mobility in a part of the foot is impaired, and pain occurs. Most often it is congenital (that is, the so-called orthopedic shoes do not affect the condition). This is observed in 1-2% of cases. Such patients are carefully examined and treated.

Hypermobile flat feet with shortening of the Achilles tendon is a problematic condition, it occurs in 10-12% of cases of flat feet. It usually manifests itself already in adulthood, while in children, even when wearing special shoes and physiotherapy, the effect is zero.

Why is it important to visit a podiatrist - to distinguish the "good" form of flat feet from the "evil". In this case, it is the doctor who must decide how to deal with the patient correctly: do not touch, send for surgery, adjust the lifestyle, etc. Outwardly, in all cases, the foot may look the same.

Arch support and walking on stones never give 100% results.

The psychological moment plays an important role: parents easily panic and begin to treat children as if they were sick, even if flat feet are not problematic. Also, the child's self-esteem goes down if he knows that he constantly needs to be "treated", he needs "special" shoes, etc. Therefore, first you need to get a competent conclusion from a specialist, and only then take up treatment or just leave the child in rest.

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• Hospitalization of a child: in what cases it is impossible to refuse