Friday, January 7, 2011

Welcome, 2011! Care to Dance? Mind if I Limp Along?

I don't know about you, but I need a vacation from my vacation! Waaaayyyy too many things to do during the holidays, and insufficient will to do them with glee. But I regress...

Been limping a lot more than usual, lately, and it brought back fond memories of when I did a lot of gait analysis. Limping is much more than a sign of pain, you see. How we limp is one of several indicators of our overall pathomechanics, and can act as a signpost for the central cause of the limping itself. Of course, when we limp because we just stubbed our toe, there is little left to discover! But the case with us clubbies is seldom so simple. We may have a limb length difference (more common than you may imagine,) or the biomechanics on the left differs from the right, and the limp is a response to that difference, which may be the cause of the pain that brings on the limp. This is why it is so important to have your gait analyzed by a good biomechanist, because the real cause may be harder to pinpoint than you may suspect. Limps can arise from knee and hip/pelvis issues as much as from foot issues, and some limps are the result of neurological deficits, or, insults as they are described, such as stroke, or some other disease or accident-induced trauma.

I will be doing several posts in the coming months on this topic, focusing on specific kinds of limping and other clear pathomechanical signals that may arise from post-club feet. Stay tuned.

And Happy 2011!