Essay On Clubfoot

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Kristi Yamaguchi is best known as an Olympic champion who won a gold medal for women’s individual figure skating in 1992. Most people don’t know that Kristi Yamaguchi was born with bilateral clubfoot. Kristi became interested in ice skating when she was 4 or 5 years old after watching former Olympians Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill skate in the Ice Follies and Ice Capades (Working Mother, n.d.). In an interview with Aylona Minkovski (2014), Yamaguchi said, “when [I] wanted to start skating [my] doctors said ‘Yes, it might help with the strength and coordination [after clubfeet treatment], and it’s a very good athletic activity.’ ”
Clubfoot is a common congenital deformity of one or both feet. Clubfoot can sometimes be identified during fetal ultrasound or by visual inspection at birth. Physiotherapist Kelly Gray and Doctor Paul Gibbons describe clubfoot (Australian Family Practice (AFP), 2012) as “a deformity characterized by structural equinus (pointing down), adductus (turning in), varus (twisting, such that the heel is pointing in or upward), and cavus (high arch)” (p. 299). Skeletal abnormalities of clubfoot can include small calcaneus, navicular, and talus bones and a misshapen subtalar joint (Clubfoot, 2011). According to the Mayo Clinic (2013) the calf muscle of the affected leg is usually smaller than the non-affected leg, and the affected foot can be ½ inch shorter than the non-affected foot.
The rate of clubfoot in the United States is roughly 1 in 1,000 births, it is twice as likely to affect boys than girls, and occurs in both feet half the time (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), 2007).
No one knows the cause of clubfoot, but scientists do know that clubfoot is not caused by the position ...

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...urniture I can make sure they have their feet in a normal foot alignment. I will need to encourage babies to stand with their feet flat on the ground, walk, squat, and jump to encourage foot movement and strength.
Play therapy will still be used in toddler and preschool aged patients. Activities such as frog hopping, one-legged hopping in place, and hopscotch will strengthen core, hip, calf, ankle, and foot muscles. I would also incorporate walking on different surfaces, at different angles, and up and down the stairs to help with every day activities, increase range of motion, and stability. Regardless of the patient’s age, it is imperative that I educate parents on why the proper exercises are important to maintaining proper foot alignment and how they can do them at home incorporating play therapy and more structured exercises the older a patient gets.

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