When it comes to talipes equino varus, the big lie told by the medical profession to parents is, "Don't worry, they can be corrected." Now, what the parent hears behind this word is "cured" and "fixed." The implication is that by altering the position of the foot, all will be right. Your child will be "normal." And this of course brings relief to the minds of the parents, and they put their trust in the folks in the white coats. But there's a problem with this situation - a big problem, in fact.
Whether surgical or non-surgical, older methods or Ponsetti, the re-positioning of the foot is merely a reconfiguration, not - listen carefully here - a "correction." To "correct" means to put right, to return something to it's original or intended state. CF treatments do not do this - they do not return something to its original state (with a child born with CF, that IS the original state,) and they do not "put right" such feet to their "intended state." If this was the case, then the atrophy attendant with CF would resolve. There would be no residual joint misalignment that become increasingly pathomechanical over the years. The child would not grow up, in more than 68% of the cases, to have painful arthritic changes before they are fifty, sometimes even sooner. (This is just one estimate, from the Dobbs study. There are differing estimates, but the best is from the Ponsetti study that shows there is still a 15% probability of a poor long-term outcome.)
So this persistent use of the term "corrected" is not merely a lie, but a damned lie, as it misleads parents, others in the medical profession, government policies, and especially, the child, into feeling anything to the contrary is untrue. This makes government policies based on falsehoods, parents misleading and disbelieving their own children, other medical professionals unsure of who to believe, or whether their patient is merely malingering, and the child growing up to feel that anything that goes wrong is their own fault, that they somehow "broke" what the surgeon's claim to have "corrected."
This must change. We must demand that the pediatric orthopedists and podiatrists who work with talipes children cease using this term. They are in fact re-aligning, reconfiguring these feet, and that is what they should be calling it. Until they truly figure out a real cure, they need to stop claiming such. And we post-clubbies need to hammer that point home, again and again.
It is the medical profession that needs to be "corrected."
Whether surgical or non-surgical, older methods or Ponsetti, the re-positioning of the foot is merely a reconfiguration, not - listen carefully here - a "correction." To "correct" means to put right, to return something to it's original or intended state. CF treatments do not do this - they do not return something to its original state (with a child born with CF, that IS the original state,) and they do not "put right" such feet to their "intended state." If this was the case, then the atrophy attendant with CF would resolve. There would be no residual joint misalignment that become increasingly pathomechanical over the years. The child would not grow up, in more than 68% of the cases, to have painful arthritic changes before they are fifty, sometimes even sooner. (This is just one estimate, from the Dobbs study. There are differing estimates, but the best is from the Ponsetti study that shows there is still a 15% probability of a poor long-term outcome.)
So this persistent use of the term "corrected" is not merely a lie, but a damned lie, as it misleads parents, others in the medical profession, government policies, and especially, the child, into feeling anything to the contrary is untrue. This makes government policies based on falsehoods, parents misleading and disbelieving their own children, other medical professionals unsure of who to believe, or whether their patient is merely malingering, and the child growing up to feel that anything that goes wrong is their own fault, that they somehow "broke" what the surgeon's claim to have "corrected."
This must change. We must demand that the pediatric orthopedists and podiatrists who work with talipes children cease using this term. They are in fact re-aligning, reconfiguring these feet, and that is what they should be calling it. Until they truly figure out a real cure, they need to stop claiming such. And we post-clubbies need to hammer that point home, again and again.
It is the medical profession that needs to be "corrected."
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