Gražina Garbenienė

Abstract

Summary
Unkomfortable fashionable footwear, prolonged standing, sedentary job and low physical activiety weakenes the muscules and ligaments of the feet, making them unable to sustain body weight and forcing them to turn to one or another direction.
The topic of feet deformations have been widely analysed, however the plantar morphology feet testing among the female students among Kaunas college was conducted for the very first time.
The objective of  this thesis was to test the feet of the female students from Kaunas college using the method of plantography, then link the feet conditions to the levels of physical activity, body mass index, tipe of footwear worn as well as the hereditary factor. A survey in the form of a questionnare was conducted and the respondents were tested using the method of plantography. Footprints can help to establish the width or the foot support, its relation to the length and the width of the foot itself as well as to determine the grade of pes planus.
The guestionnare included such questions as whether the students had any previously established feet variations, whether they had any hereditary conditions; how often they opted for high – heeled foot wear; what their most commonly worn type of shoes was; how much time per weak they spent doing exercise; whether they often suffered from bladder pain, calluses or sore thumbs; how much time per day the female students spent standing and whether they opted for overly tight footwear.
The results of the test revealed that a third of the students had feet variations and the rest of them had healthy feet. Most of the students, having pes planus were of normal weight.
Among the over weight students there were 2.5 times more cases of feet variations than healthy feet. 90% of the females were physically inactive, spent a lot of time sitting and wore unevenly soled footwear, however some of them wore high- heeled shoes a couple of hours per day. The majority of the respondents wore such shoes a couple of hours per month. One fifth of the tested female students footprints showed distinct pressure signs in the areas metatarsus heads that could be considered as signs of the formation of transverse pes planus. The survey suggests that the tendencies for feet becoming flat are governed by such factors as low physical activity, unsuitable footwear and being overweight. The female students having feet variations were unaware of their condition, however as most of the students opted for comfortable, suitable and considerably low- heeled (3-4cm) footwear, 66.67% did not have feet problems.

Keyword(s): pes planus, plantography, arches of the feet, deformations.
DOI: 10.5200/156
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