Toe Walking - Treatment

Treatment

For idiopathic toe walking in young children, doctors may prefer to watch and wait: the child may "outgrow" the condition. If there is a reduction in the child's range of motion, there are several options.

  • Wearing a brace or splint either during the day, night or both which limits the ability of the child to walk on his or her toes and stretches the Achilles tendon. One type of brace used is an AFO (ankle-foot orthosis).
  • Serial casting where the foot is cast with the tendon stretched, and the cast is changed weekly with progressive stretching.
  • Botox therapy is used to paralyze the calf muscles to reduce the opposition of the muscles to stretching the Achilles stretching, usually together with serial casting or splinting.
  • If conservative measures fail to correct the toe walking after about 12–24 months, surgical lengthening of the tendon is an option. The surgery is typically done under full anesthesia but if there are no issues, the child is released the same day. After the surgery, a below-the-knee walking cast is worn for six weeks and then an AFO is worn to protect the tendon for several months.

For toe walking which results from more serious neuro-muscular conditions, additional specialists may need to be consulted.

Read more about this topic:  Toe Walking

Famous quotes containing the word treatment:

    “Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
    —Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    “If the study of all these sciences, which we have enumerated, should ever bring us to their mutual association and relationship, and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them together, I believe that the diligent treatment of them will forward the objects which we have in view, and that the labor, which otherwise would be fruitless, will be well bestowed.”
    —Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)

    “The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
    —Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)