The Relevance of a 3D Multisegment Foot Model in Predicting and Determining the Clinical Outcome After Ankle and Hindfoot Reconstruction Procedures

Most symptomatic pathologies of the ankle and hindfoot are determined by biomechanical alterations of this anatomical region. Surgical treatment of these pathologies is therefore aimed at improving the inferior biomechanical condition, and it can be expected that an improvement of the biomechanical parameters grossly parallels the targeted clinical improvement.

Unfortunately, in the past, biomechanical examination of the lower limb and foot consisted of two distinct study protocols: gaitlab and plantar pressure measurements.

First, these two study protocols were acquired completely independently. Therefore, it proved to be very hard to compare the results and get insight in the way altered biomechanics caused or continued to cause abnormal plantar pressure distributions. However, recently it was possible to integrate these two modalities, especially concerning the timing of the events, what makes it possible to reliably link the observed findings.

Second, virtually all gaitlab models considered the foot & ankle region as one single segment, making it impossible to evaluate any biomechanical parameter within the targeted region. 3D Multisegment Foot Models have been developed and validated since the beginning of this century. Such a validated 3D Multisegment Foot Model is now standard available in the gaitlab of UZ Leuven making it possible to study a huge amount of biomechanical parameters within the foot & ankle region itself.

Furthermore, only a paucity of information is available if the observed clinical changes are indeed paralleled by an equally directed biomechanical change.