Shubhi Kulshrestha¹*, Shubham Sharma² and Sukriti Raj³

¹Senior Physiotherapist, AID PLUS Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Clinic, Delhi, India
²Assistant Professor, Santosh Medical College, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
³Physiotherapy Faculty, Impact Paramedical and Health Institute, New Delhi, India

*Corresponding Author: Shubhi Kulshrestha, Senior Physiotherapist, AID PLUS Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Clinic, Delhi, India.

Received: August 22, 2022; Published: September 28, 2022

Abstract

Background: Plantar fascia (PF) plays an important role in maintaining the normal ankle biomechanics as it has a significant role in weight-bearing both in static and dynamic balance. Various structural as well as functional roles have been indicated with the virtue of its anatomical attachments as during weight bearing tibia loads the foot and creates the tension through the plantar fascia commonly called as the windlass mechanism. The tension created in the PF adds a critical amount of stability to a weight-bearing foot with minimal muscle activity. PF also acts as a shock absorbent as it provides the support to the arch of the foot. At least 80% of the general population has foot problems, but these problems can often be corrected by proper assessment and treatment but above all caring for the feet. Injuries to ankle and foot can alter the mechanism of gait (walking pattern) which can alter the biomechanics of the complete lower limb leading to various pathologies. One of the prevalent conditions is plantar fasciitis caused by the inflammation of plantar fascia.

Objective: To identify the latest method of clinically diagnosing Plantar fasciitis, physical examination of Plantar fasciitis. To know the disabling symptoms faced by patients, the methods to rule out plantar fasciitis from various other symptoms.

Methods: Database-specific search terms and certain keywords were sorted into different concepts for plantar fasciitis and its clinical diagnostics. With these concepts, the keywords were searched individually on different search mediums like Google scholar, Cochrane, PubMed and Medline. The outcome measured used were- type of study, author name and year of study, number of participants, purpose of study, protocol or method used and the outcome concluded. Pedro scale was used as quality assessment tool. The Pedro scale was developed to help Pedro users to rapidly identify trials that are likely to be internally valid and have sufficient statistical information to guide clinical decision-making.

Results: A total of 59 available literature was found out of which 48 were excluded because of lack of availability of full text and involvement of surgical procedure, only 11 were selected.

Conclusion: For radiological diagnosis ultrasonic is found to be one of the most effective modality for confirming plantar fasciitis as compared t other modalities as it is cost-efficient but certain tools needs to developed for a quick examination of plantar fasciitis so that the treatment can be planned accordingly. Being one of the most prevalent condition it should be considered for a reliable diagnosis.

Keywords: Plantar Fasciitis; Heel Pain; Clinical Diagnosis

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Citation: Shubhi Kulshrestha et al. “Review on Assessment Tools for Clinical Diagnosis of Plantar Fasciitis". Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 3.10 (2022): 31-38.

Copyright: © 2022 Shubhi Kulshrestha et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.