Abstract

The purpose of the present survey is the comparison of the strength and range of motion of ankles’ muscles in teenager boys with and without flatfoot. For this purpose, 50 subjects consisted of 25 students who had flexible flat foot, with a mean age, height and weight, 12±0.87 years, 149.84±9.71cm, 45.92±10.58kg respectively, and 25 students without flatfoot with a mean age, height and weight, 11.92±0.81 years, 150.88±8.21cm and 46.28±9.34kg respectively, participated in the research after medical examination by the physician. The comparison of the strength of ankle’s muscles in D.F and P.F, and the ankles’ range of motion in dorsiflexion and plantarflexion was evaluated in three conditions of without resistance, under pressure, and with resistance in both healthy and affected groups. Clear universal goniometer was used for measuring the range of motion. Lafayette hand-held digital dynamometer was used for measuring the strength. All the data was evaluated through SPSS software version 20. Alpha 0.05 was regarded as the level of significance. Independent t-test was used for comparing the aforementioned variables in two groups. To compare the range of motion in D.F and P.F in three evaluating conditions for each of the motions one inter group variable of measurement condition (including 3 levels) and one intra group variable was used based on separated variance analysis. Multiple analysis of variance test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Bonferroni correction was used. The present investigation showed that no significant difference was seen between the aforesaid hypotheses among two healthy and flat foot affected groups.

Keywords: Flat foot; Isometric strength; Range of motion