Impact Of Corns On The Antalgic Nature Of The Human Foot

Gait Pattern, Impacts of Antalgic Gait, and Normal Gait

Discuss about the Impact of Corns on the Antalgic Nature of The Human Foot.

Human gait refers to the forward propulsion of the human body through limb movement (Shutler, 2004). The following is an analysis of a patient with a tremendously painful corn located under the first metatarsophalangeal joint. This paper will attempt to elaborate the impact that a corn has on a person’s gait.

According to Kennedy, (2010) corns are tiny circles of thick skin that typically develop on the upper and lower parts of the foot. The painful nature of corns comes about ‘due to the constant skin irritation, done by a shoe’ (Hawke and Burns, 2009). Given that a corn is more than likely located under the metatarsophalangeal joint, then a patient's gait may be referred to as antalgic. Antalgic gait is an abnormality in a person’s style of walking caused by worsening pain when bearing weight on one limb. Antalgic gait caused by pain in the foot may lead to a reduced walk length and lessened weight-bearing on the affected leg. If the problems arise from a corn related discomfort in the front of the foot, then the inclination is to avoid toe-off.

The gait cycle refers to walking sequences that start when one foot touches the ground and ends when the same foot touches the ground again. A normal gait cycle is typically made up of two phases which include stance phase and swing phase. The stance phase accounts for 60% of the gait cycle while the swing phase accounts for 40% of the sequence (Mickle et al., 2011). The stance phase commences with the heel strike which is the moment when the heel touches the ground. In this step, the toe does not touch the ground thus patients with a corn may experience minimal pain. After the heel strike phase, the support period where the entire foot of the leading leg touches the ground and muscles work to relieve the force exerted.  Here the patients may experience minimum pain while preparing to enter the toe-off stage.

During the toe-off phase, the foot makes to thrust the entire leg until it leaves the ground. The toe off phase is where a patient gets compromised, and due to maximum pain caused by the corn, he or she feels extreme pain during movement. During normal gait, a person can smoothly coordinate his or her movement thus weight transfer from the right leg to the left leg takes place smoothly (Jordan et al., 2007). The subsequent swing stage follows while the patient struggles to regain normal gait. Acceleration and deceleration make up the final swing phase. In the acceleration stage, extreme corn related is present given that the swing leg propels the whole body forward. Here a person knows about the painful nature of the corn and knows acceleration will only lead to increased pain.

Conclusion

To avoid the stress and suffering experienced during gait, the person reduces the overall time taken in the stance phase to prevent further agony. A person with a corn may also avoid acceleration in the swing stage and walk with a slow, manageable pace.

References

Shutler, J.D., Grant, M.G., Nixon, M.S. and Carter, J.N., 2004. On a large sequence-based human gait database. In Applications and Science in Soft Computing (pp. 339-346). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Kennedy, C.T.C., Burd, D.A.R. and Creamer, D., 2010. Mechanical and thermal injury. Rook's Textbook of Dermatology, Eighth Edition, pp.1-94.

Hawke, F. and Burns, J., 2009. Understanding the nature and mechanism of foot pain. Journal of foot and ankle research, 2(1), p.1.

Mickle, K.J., Munro, B.J., Lord, S.R., Menz, H.B. and Steele, J.R., 2011. Gait, balance and plantar pressures in older people with toe deformities. Gait & posture, 34(3), pp.347-351.

Jordan, K., Challis, J.H. and Newell, K.M., 2007. Walking speed influences on gait cycle variability. Gait & posture, 26(1), pp.128-134.