Assessment of foot posture: Correlation between different clinical techniques

BackgroundClinical evaluation of foot posture is necessary for assessing and treating patients with lower extremity dysfunction. Although several studies have explored the reliability and validity of different clinical techniques for the measurement of foot posture, there is limited research in studies investigating whether two or more such techniques correlate with each other.ObjectivesTo explore the correlations between the valgus and arch index measurements with the measurements of the navicular drop and drift in bipedal and single-leg stance.MethodsClinical measurements of the valgus index, the arch index, the navicular drop and drift were performed on the left foot of 26 healthy subjects in bipedal and in single-leg stance with 30° knee flexion.ResultsThe valgus index yielded moderate to strong correlations with the measurement of navicular drop (bipedal: r = 0.657, p < 0.001; single-leg stance: r = 0.613, p = 0.001) and small correlations with navicular drift (bipedal: r = 0.481, p = 0.13; single-leg stance: r = 0.335, p = 0.094). The arch index demonstrated small correlations with the navicular drop and drift in both bipedal and single-leg stance (r = 0.317-0.428, p = 0.115–0.029).ConclusionsAlthough strong associations were obtained between the valgus index and the navicular drop, all other correlations demonstrated low degrees of association. Further research should explore the association of these clinical measurements in patients with foot/lower limb impairments.