Gastrocnemius Tightness and Foot Pain in Children
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Clinical examination.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Child Development, Gastrocnemius Equinus. Basic parameters: 4 years — 16 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Norway
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Is There an Association Between Gastrocnemius Tightness and Foot- and Legpain in Children?
Overview
Foot and leg pain among otherwise healthy children is a common reason for referral to our pediatric orthopaedics outpatient clinic. The pain is often intermittent and transient, but for some the pain is more dominating and has an impact on the child and families. Children grown and have normal anatomical variations such as in-toeing, out-toeing, hypermobility, flatfeet, knock knees etc. Assessing such normal variants is a major part of pediatric orthopaedic practice, and a common finding is a positive Silvferskiöld test, indicating gastrocnemius tightness. This is when dorsiflexion of the ankle is limited with extended knee, compared to flexed knee. We do not know if this is a more frequent finding among children with foot and leg pain. There is however evidence that adults with painful foot conditions often have gastrocnemius tightness. This project will investigate for gastrocnemius tightness in otherwise healthy children referred to our pediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic with foot and leg pain, and compare results with a similar control group of children without pain. The aim is to investigate if there is an association, and how pain and tightness develops over time. The knowledge from this project will enable us to develop new treatment strategies to this patient group, where current evidence based recommendations are few.
Interventions
- Other Clinical examination
No intervention, only clinical examination
Primary outcome measures
- Silvferskiölds test [Time frame: 2 years]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Otherwise healthy children referred to pediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic with foot and/or leg pain with a normal leg function
Exclusion criteria
- Patients with foot conditions, general medical conditions affecting the foot or clinical findings indicating a need for further investigation for a diagnosis. Such as:
Foot deformities (cavo-varus foot, clubfoot) Tarsal coalitions Neuro-orthopedic conditions (CP, MMC) Fracture sequelae Infections and tumour
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Observational model
- Cohort
Study locations
Norway · 1 center
- St Olavs hospital — Trondheim
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05862246 · 526706