Drop foot or foot drop is a complex syndrome, an abnormal with multiple interactions between joints and muscles disorder that affects a person’s ability to raise their foot at the ankle, which can cause difficulty in walking.
The ankle and toe dorsiflexors include tibialis anterior, extensor hallucis longus, and extensor digitorum longus. Usually these muscles used to help the body clear the foot during swing phase and control plantar flexion of the foot on heel strike. Due to the weakness of those muscles cause a fixed contracture in plantar flexion, means that the dorsiflexion function is taken over by plantar flexor, results in an equinovarus deformity. This deformity will cause walking becomes a challenge to patient because they unable to control the foot to lift up at the ankle. Patient may drag the foot and toes while
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In normal individual the sequence of limb movement in the gait cycle phases is extension, flexion, extension and flexion. In patients with drop foot, the sequence changed in such that only extension and flexion are observed. The first extension can be seen increase in the gait cycle, such that knee hyperextension may be observed. The hyperextension of the knee puts stress on the structure of the joint at the point of heel contact, and increase knee flexor torque due to hamstrings work actively to extend the thigh at the same time.
In normal gait swing phase, the raised leg is propelled forward. The forward motion of walk occurs.According to Stephen Kishner, the acceleration is begins once the toe of the reference extremity leaves the ground and continues until mid swing or the point at which the swinging extremity is directly under the body. The hip is flexed and resist the gravity as it tries to pull the leg down. Then, the deceleration occurs after the mid swing when tibia passes beyond the perpendicular and knee is extending in preparation for heel