- The Gait and Posture Centre sees many children as patients, from as early as the time they crawl to maturity.
- Some children are referred by their Paediatricians or GP’s because they suffer “growing pains” which may affect their sleep patterns and even cause pain walking and running.
- Other children are referred without symptoms but because their siblings or parents have suffered with foot and leg problems perhaps driven by their genetic foot shape such as ‘flat, over pronated feet’ or cavoid (highly arched) feet. Sometimes feet turn in badly (in-toeing) whilst others externally rotate (out-toeing).
- We specialise in sports related injury and deal regularly with young athletes, dancers, swimmers, gymnasts and often are able to optimise foot and leg function with the use of orthoses with subsequent performance enhancement benefits, and injury prevention in mind.
Common conditions which affect children
- Growing pains.
- Night foot and leg pains.
- Heel pain (maybe Sever’s disease of the calcaneum).
- Hyper-mobility.
- Inferior knee pain (Osgood Schlatters Disease).
- Skin lesions (Verrucae and foot warts) There are several varieties so Podiatry diagnosis is preferable to home treatment.
- Skin melanoma. These can affect feet and legs and professional examination is essential.
- Ingrowing Toenails (onychocryptosis).
- Pain in the ball of the foot. (This needs Podiatry diagnosis as it could be one of several disorders, capsulitis; synovitis; osteochondritis (Freibergs Disease); metatarsal stress fracture.
- Ankle pain. (This needs Podiatry diagnosis as it could be one of several disorders that can affect growing feet and ankles).
- Ankle sprains.
