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ScienceDaily are reporting: Foot Pain? Custom-made Insoles Offer Relief
Quote:
Custom-made insoles known as foot orthoses can reduce foot pain caused by arthritis, overly prominent big toe joints and highly arched feet, a new systematic review shows.
A team of Cochrane Researchers found that custom orthoses were safe interventions for foot pain in a number of different conditions. However, more research is required to develop an in depth understanding of their effectiveness.
Approximately one in four people are affected by foot pain at any given time. It is often disabling and can impair mood, behaviour, self-care ability and overall quality of life. People suffer from foot pain for a variety of reasons, but pain is more common in the elderly and those with chronic conditions such as arthritis. In the majority of cases, patients undergo a combination of different treatments, one of which may be custom-made foot orthoses (insoles moulded to a cast of the foot).
The Cochrane Systematic Review focuses on the results of 11 trials that together involved 1,332 people. Researchers found that custom foot orthoses can relieve pain within three months in adults with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, an early onset form of the disease. Adults with painful highly arched feet or painfully prominent big toe joints also benefited from treatment with orthoses over three and six month periods respectively.
"Custom foot orthoses can be an effective treatment for a variety of conditions, but there are still many causes of foot pain for which the benefit of this treatment is unclear. There is also a lack of data on the long term effects of treating with orthoses," says Fiona Hawke, the lead researcher, who works at the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Re: Cochrane review: Custom-made foot orthoses for the treatment of foot pain
Congratulations to the authors of this review - it is outstanding. It is very well written, rigorous, and uses the latest Cochrane review techniques to minimise bias.
It is important that clinicians and researchers (and the general public) view the review for what it is: a rigorous review of appropriate trials that have evaluated the effectiveness of custom-made foot orthoses for the treatment of foot pain. Importantly, the review presents no new data, other than that which has been pooled from the trials that were included in the review.
I would encourage readers to take this into account and not begin the often usual campaign of attempting to discredit the authors because they (the reader) may not like the conclusions. All the authors have done is reviewed currently available data in a highly systematic and unbiased way.
Quite simply, the authors have performed an excellent review of the available evidence, and this review has used the best possible methods to reduce bias in their conclusions. Well done to all involved.
Re: Cochrane review: Custom-made foot orthoses for the treatment of foot pain
Thanks Karl,
Fiona has done a wonderful job with this ambitious systematic review. She conducted it last year as her Podiatry Honours project and received First Class Honours and the University Medal for her outstanding effort.
More recently Fiona was awarded the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts Award in Health and has had the paper accepted for conference presentation at the upcoming IASP 12th World Congress on Pain in Glasgow, United Kingdom and the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics meeting (i-FAB) in Bologna, Italy.
The review has already been picked up by several international media outlets including:
Cochrane review: Custom-made foot orthoses for the treatment of foot pain
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