The Foot Posture Index is a tool that clinicians and researchers can use for assessing the posture of the foot.
Feet come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and there needs to be a way to classify them to help decide when something is not normal, to help recommend treatments and classify feet for research purposes. Most classifications are based on one parameter such as the arch height or something like that. The height of the arch is really just a measure of the sagittal plane variation of the arch. There are many other variations of the foot posture or alignment that happen in the other body planes. This means you could end up with a different classification of the foot depending on which parameter you use. A foot could be normal on one measurement or observation if it is used or it could also be very abnormal if a different one is used.
The Foot Posture Index was developed to give a measurement to a foot based on several different parameters in different body planes to give a composite sore of the posture of the foot based on those different observations.
It is a score based on these observations:
- In the transverse place it notes the amount of midfoot bulging and abduction of the forefoot.
- In the sagittal plane it notes the height of the arch
- In the frontal plane it notes if the calcaneus is inverted, everted or vertical.
