NCT03670563

Training Intrinsic Foot Muscles

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 39 (actual)
• Sponsor: St. Louis University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 30 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The foot intrinsic muscles are increasingly targeted in foot and ankle rehabilitation. The exercises are often difficult to learn initially. The purpose of the proposed study is to examine the effect training the intrinsic foot muscles on performance in selected physical and functional measures such as balance, plantar pressure during gait, vertical jump, and foot posture. In addition,the investigators will compare one group training with traditional exercise instruction methods and one group using an adjunctive modality (neuromuscular electric stimulation) during the introductory phases of exercise instruction. The investigators are interested in how this modality might affect physical and functional outcome measures and if it affects participants' frustration with learning a new exercise.

Detailed description

Arm 1: The purpose of this arm of the study is to determine if a 4-week trial of foot muscle exercises, instructed with passive, active-assisted, and active techniques, affect functional measures such as balance, plantar pressure during gait, and vertical jump. A frustration index will be employed to assess participant frustration with learning a new exercise. 15 will be enrolled in this arm of the study. Arm 2: The purpose of this arm of the study is to determine if a 4-week trial of foot muscle exercises, instructed with neuromuscular electric stimulation (NMES) and active techniques, affect functional measures such as balance, plantar pressure during gait, and vertical jump. A frustration index will be employed to assess participant frustration with learning a new exercise.15 will be enrolled in this arm of the study. Arm 3: This group will not engage in any training, but will serve as a comparator for the two intervention arms.

Conditions

• Muscular Weakness

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Short foot exercise protocol	Exercises that target intrinsic foot muscles
OTHER	Short foot exercise plus NMES	Exercises that target intrinsic foot muscles supplemented by NMES for muscle re-education

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-10-10
• Primary completion: 2019-04-05
• Completion: 2019-04-05
• First posted: 2018-09-13
• Last updated: 2019-05-03

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States