Effectiveness of home stretching exercise for the treatment of congenital talipes calcaneovalgus: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

© JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION OF THAILAND| 2019 Background: Congenital talipes calcaneovalgus (CTCV) is the deformities characterized by hyperdorsiflexion of the foot against the anterior surface of the tibia. The treatments proposed were gentle stretching exercises performed by the parents, corrective casting or splinting with or without stretching exercises. No information regarding effectiveness of the treatment or comparing the outcome between the treatments. Objective: The purpose of this prospective randomized controlled study is to evaluate the effectiveness of stretching manipulation performed by the parents, in comparison with no treatment, in newborns with congenital talipes calcaneovalgus (CTCV). Materials and Methods: The healthy babies aged ranging from 1 to 7 days, who were born with CTCV were included in the present study. Simple randomization was done to allocate the patients into 2 groups. In group A-the treated group, the parents were taught to perform stretching exercise consisting of passive plantar flexion of the deformed foot for at least 10 seconds each time and at least 10 times a day. Group B contained the newborns that did not receive any treatment other than explanation about diagnosis, prognosis and follow-up plan. The follow-up intervals for both groups were one, three, four, six and ten months after enrollment. The demographic data in sex, affected side, severity of the deformity, weight and height of the newborns were recorded. The outcome measured included rate and time to recovery for each group. Results: There were 38 cases (16 boys, 22 girls) in group A and 36 cases (15 boys, 22 girls) in group B who had complete followup data for the final analysis. There were no statistically significant differences in sex, affected side, severity of the deformity, weight, height, recovery time, and success rate between the two groups. Conclusion: The foot with uncomplicated CTCV have good prognosis and achieve full recovery within 300 days regardless of treatment.