Original Articles
Luo Y., Mei Q. C., Graham M. R
Abstract
Plantar pressure information is very useful to the diabetic patients' foot health. A lot of pressure measurement studies have carried out on diabetic person. However, quite few could be found to know the diabetic foot's incipient stage such as toe deformity. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively assess plantar pressure associations with toe deformed diabetic patients. Six neuropathic diabetic subjects with the fifth toe deformity, and six age and gender matched neuropathic diabetic controls without deformity, were examined. Dynamic barefoot plantar pressures were measured with Novel EMED pressure platform. Peak pressure and pressure–time integral for each of 7 foot regions were calculated. Peak pressure was significantly higher in the patients with toe deformity at heel, hallux, and other toes regions, when compared with controls. Meanwhile, loading sustained time extend longer in toe regions of deformed group than the controls, and the center of pressure was nearly in the big toe region during toe-off stage. Diabetic subject with toe deformity could cause plantar contact area, pressure and gravity center variety. It shall attach importance to toe deformity situation, because it highly associated with ulcer risk especially in hallux region.