Foot Dimension Assessment: Reliability and Agreement of Manual, Pedobarographic, and Handheld 3D Scanning Methods

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Orthopaedics
• Sports Medicine

Background:

• Accurate foot morphology assessment is crucial for sports medicine, orthopaedics, and footwear design.
• Manual foot examination is common but may lack accuracy and reproducibility.
• Pedobarography and 3D scanning offer objective alternatives, pending validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the intra-rater reliability and inter-method agreement of manual examination, pedobarography, and 3D scanning for foot morphology assessment.
• To determine if these methods can be used interchangeably for clinical and design applications.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-six healthy adults underwent foot dimension assessments using manual examination, pedobarography, and handheld 3D scanning.
• Each method was applied twice by two independent investigators in random order.
• Reliability (intra-rater) and agreement (inter-method) were analyzed using ICC, bias, LoA, TE, and CCC.

Main Results:

• Good-to-excellent intra-rater reliability was observed for distance-related foot dimensions across all methods.
• Pedobarography showed limitations for heel width assessment (high TE).
• Inter-method agreement was low, particularly for heel width and arch measures, indicating lack of interchangeability.

Conclusions:

• Manual examination, pedobarography, and 3D scanning are reliable for distance-based foot measurements individually.
• Significant discrepancies exist between the methods, preventing interchangeable use without standardization.
• Standardization protocols are necessary to ensure consistent and comparable foot morphology data across different assessment techniques.