Clubfoot in children: signs, causes, treatment. How to correct clubfoot in a child?

The article will tell about the widespread orthopedic problem - clubfoot in children. What are its causes? What should be the treatment of clubfoot?

In childhood, the human musculoskeletal system continues to develop. Therefore, children may experience certain orthopedic problems.

They cause incredible anxiety in parents, so they can turn into a significant deterioration in the quality of life. One of such problems, very common, is clubfoot.

Clubfoot in children signs

Orthopedists say that every third child has gait problems. Some of them can be fixed easily, others are almost impossible.

This could indicate a disability. As for clubfoot, the earlier it is revealed in a child, the faster, easier and more fully it is treated.

The club foot means the deformation of the feet.

Pathology is a deformity of the foot( stop) at which it deviates inward and assumes an incorrect position.

IMPORTANT: Clubfoot in children may be congenital or acquired

Typically, in children up to a year, a neonatologist identifies a congenital clubfoot. Further, the diagnosis is confirmed by an orthopedist.

Usually, congenital clubfoot is detected immediately after the baby's birth.

Parents may themselves suspect this problem in the child if:

• on the foot has a deep transverse fold
• stop short and plump
• of the foot is bent in the plantar direction( equinus)
• heel looks inward( the varus)
• of the foot is inverted, its upper edge looks
• in the movements of his sole there are restrictions( adduction)
• the toes of his legs( one leg) are bent inside
• of the calf of the child are twisted( torsion)
• of the leg muscles have weak
• the child's legs as a whole look likeDeveloped

IMPORTANT: The clubfoot becomes very noticeable when the baby starts walking. His gait is called the "walk of Winnie the Pooh"

The clubfoot in children causes. Congenital clubfoot in children

The causes of clubfoot in children are different, and they depend on whether the acquired pathology or congenital.
If the clubfoot is congenital, this means that the child's locomotor system initially, in utero, began to form incorrectly. Deformations were:

• bones
• joints
• muscles
• vessels
• nerves

Congenital clubfoot often occurs as a consequence of genetic disorders.

Most often, since birth, children will clumble both legs.

IMPORTANT: It is interesting that congenital deformity of the feet is more common in newborn males

The causes of this pathology of foot development can not be established. The most likely doctors call the following pathogenic factors:

1. Restrictions on fetal movements in the uterus. They can lead to hypertension of the uterus, the presence of a septum or neoplasms, an incorrect position of the fetus in late pregnancy
2. Genetic disorders. The probability of the appearance of a clubfooted kid in a family where parents or their close relatives also had this problem is great. A number of syndromes of intrauterine development disorders include clubfoot
3. Pathologies of the formation of the fetal nervous and muscle tissues. They do not arise because of a malfunction in the genes, but because the woman during her pregnancy smoked, drank alcohol, took drugs, was often nervous, worked in harmful work, took medications that were forbidden during pregnancy, suffered an infectious disease,other

Acquired clubfoot means deformation of the foot( stop) already during the life of the child. It occurs much less often congenital, usually already in adulthood, and arises for the following reasons:

• muscle injury
• ankle joint injury
• improperly accreted fracture of the bones of the shin, ankle joint, foot
• burn, in which the muscles and ligaments of the
• were damaged
• system muscular paralysis
• hip dysplasia
• spine disease
• foot tissue tumors

Club foot for children under the year

If the clubfoot of a toddleris expressed strongly, parents sound alarm and undertake the whole complex of measures in order to fix it.

If the pathology was not found in the hospital, but at the next examination of the orthopedist, and the parents did not understand at all what it is, you can often hear the opinion that the child will grow into a problem. Like, the baby's organism is plastic. But!

If you do not treat clubfoot in children under one year, the problem in the future will only worsen.

IMPORTANT: Even a slight curvature of the foot leads to an incorrect, unbalanced muscle development of the child

Overvoltage some muscles and lack of tone of the other in a child with clubfoot is fraught:

• iksoobraznomu curvature
• curvature of the spine down, in particular, to skalioz
• headaches
• sleep disturbances lagin the physical and mental development of
• , the formation of the habit of placing the foot incorrectly

IMPORTANT: It is necessary to treat congenital clubfoot precisely when the toddler is not yet onlearned to walk, otherwise you will not only have to solve the anatomical problem, but also to break the habit of

, which is ingrained in the child. How to correct clubfoot in a child, how to treat?

The tactic of clubfoot treatment in children of envy is as follows:

• congenital pathology or acquired
• what age of the child
• what is the degree of clubfoot

There are three degrees of clubfoot:

1. Lightweight - baby feet are slightly deformed, ankle joints are movable
2. Medium - foot deformity and ankle mobility limitationsExpressed
3. Severe - the child's foot is deformed significantly, the ankle joint is immobilized

Classifies clubfoot and selects child treatment methodsdoctor - orthopedist. He also determines the approximate duration of therapy, but the actual time can significantly differ from the preliminary. Sometimes it takes months and years to correct a pathology.

As a rule, light and medium club foot are treated conservatively. Are applied:

• medical massage
• LFK
• soft bandages
• ortresses( detachable orthopedic devices)
• orthopedic shoes
• physiotherapy

Heavy clubfeet in children must be treated with surgical methods.
Children under 6 years of age are operated on lengthening of tendons due to dissection of ligaments( Zatsepin's method).Sometimes you need to operate also the skeleton of the foot. In this case, the patient must be older than 4 years old.

VIDEO: Treatment of clubfoot. Ponseti method

Massage with clubfeet in children

Orthopedist determines how many courses of therapeutic massage a child needs with a clubfoot problem. Sometimes they have to do more if the recovery comes slowly.

A child with clubfoot needs to do a therapeutic massage.

Since the therapeutic massage is different from the restorative, it is recommended that at least its first course be entrusted to a specialist.
The session begins with relaxation and warming of the calf muscles( internal and posterior).This effect is achieved with:

• using special tools, for example, massage oil
• stroking
• vibrating movements
• shaking muscles

Further the movements of the masseur become more intense, it goes to the warm-up of muscles, their grinding.

VIDEO: Clubfoot

Exercises for clubfoot. Lfk at clubfoot in children

Exercises from clubfoot are most effective if you start them with a child 3-4 weeks old. At this time the ligaments and muscles of the baby are still very pliable.
Exercises such exercises:

• alternate and simultaneous flexion-extension of legs
• leg lifts
• leg bending in the feet
• circles with stops
• walking with support for

After gymnastics a soft bandage is used - bandaging by the Finck-Oettingen method.

LFK in clubfoot.

Glyssing at clubfoot

For the quick and effective correction of clubfoot in children of different ages, orthopedists use the method of Vilensky - "boots".
The method in alternating plastering is concluded:

1. After manipulation of the orthopedist, the muscles of the foot and shins are relaxed, a plaster bandage resembling boots is applied to the pedicle of the child. To wear his child needs one week
2. After removing the plaster the doctor fixes the leg in a more correct position, again imposes the plaster
3. The procedure continues until the result is achieved

Gypsum.

The plastering is supplemented by such procedures: wearing special fixing orthopedic devices, paraffin wax applications, coniferous baths, kinesitherapy, other physiotherapeutic methods.
. After casting, the child is shown wearing orthopedic footwear, exercise therapy and massage courses to fix the result.

Footwear for clubfoot

Orthopedic shoes for clubfoot correction are purchased at a special store. It should have:

• rigid backs
• insteps
• pads providing good fixation of the ankle

Footwear for the prevention of clubfoot.

Also, to treat clubfoot, children use complex orthopedic footwear - braces. These are shoes, attached at a certain angle to the plastic or metal strap.

Most often it is used to fix the results of surgical treatment of clubfoot or gypsum.
Braces are worn as follows:

• 24 hours a day, taking only bathing for 2-3 months
• for night and daytime sleep( 12-14 hours a day) - up to 3 years

For disabled children, braces are issued free of charge.

Braces.

Club foot for children Komarovsky

Famous children's doctor Ye. O.Komarovsky shares the opinion of specialists that it is impossible to ignore the clubfoot problem in children, it will not pass by itself.

The launched pathology is fraught with disabilities in the development and functioning of bones, ligaments, muscles, vessels, nerves, major problems for the whole organism.

VIDEO: What is clubfoot and what is a clubfoot?