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Plantar loading recovery delay after foot posture normalization in children with pronated foot: A two-year
Luming Yang1, Yuan Liu1, Yihong Zhao1
1National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China; Intelligent Clothing and Sports Biomechanics Laboratory, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Background:
Pronated foot in childhood typically resolves with age. However, it remains unclear whether plantar loading characteristics improve after natural recovery of foot posture and how patterns of change occur during this process.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate the effects of natural recovery of the pronated foot on plantar loading and stability in children, compared with age-matched children with normal foot, and to determine whether their plantar loading characteristics converge with those of typically developing peers.
Methods:
Thirteen children with bilateral pronated foot at baseline, whose foot posture normalized at both follow-up assessments (PNN group), and 18 age-matched children who maintained bilateral normal foot posture across all three assessments (NNN group) were evaluated three times at one-year intervals. Footscan® was used to collect plantar kinetic parameters and center of pressure (COP) trajectories. Repeated-measures ANOVA was used for longitudinal comparisons, and independent-samples t-tests and statistical parameter mapping were used for between-group comparisons.
Results:
Within one year of foot posture normalization, the plantar loading characteristics of the PNN group showed significant improvement, approaching those of the NNN group. More than one year after normalization, compared to the NNN group, the forefoot still showed an uneven loading distribution, with lower medial loading and higher lateral loading. Although plantar loading in the PNN group improved considerably over time, recovery was still incomplete, especially in the forefoot, where remaining differences persisted after foot posture normalized.
Significance:
This study highlights incomplete recovery of plantar loading after natural foot posture normalization in children with previously pronated foot, providing additional insight into plantar functional development during growth.