Metatarsalgia: Clinical Profile and Comfort from Foot Orthoses Treatment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Introduction The biomechanical factors influencing metatarsalgia etiology have been well documented; however, patient characteristics of individuals suffering from this condition and the effectiveness of foot orthosis therapy remain unknown. Objectives The objectives of this study were 1) to characterize the metatarsalgia profile of patients seeking treatment in a footwear and orthotic clinic, and 2) to explore the association between comfort and pain in patients with metatarsalgia who were treated with foot orthosis intervention. Study Design This study is a retrospective chart review. Methods Metatarsalgia assessment and follow-up data (case group n = 2137) were extracted from a research database (control group n = 82,822) from patients visiting a private foot care clinic. A clinical assessment was performed by a Canadian-certified pedorthist, and footwear recommendations and bilateral custom foot orthoses were provided to all patients. Feet were casted using a three-dimensional volumetric laser scanner. Orthoses (80% of cases) were manufactured from a direct mill polypropylene shell; additional rearfoot, forefoot postings, and/or metatarsal support was added according to the patient’s personalized treatment plan. Results Eighty-one percent (81%) of metatarsalgia patients reported symptom improvement following custom orthoses treatment. The average pain reduction from the orthotic intervention was 58.55%. The average self-reported comfort scores were 7.7 ± 2.2/10 at follow-up. Compared with our control group, patients with metatarsalgia were more frequently self-identified as females, over 51 years of age, and the condition was observed in a higher prevalence of high cavus feet. Conclusions Our results suggest that a pes cavus foot posture is a biomechanical risk factor to the development of metatarsalgia. Custom foot orthoses that are manufactured according to a patient’s personalized treatment plan are an effective conservative treatment option for pain reduction in patients suffering from metatarsalgia. Clinical Relevance Statement Foot orthoses are an effective conservative treatment option for pain reduction in metatarsalgia patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".