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Impaired Foot Plantar Flexor Muscle Performance in Individuals With Plantar Heel Pain and Association With Foot Orthosis Use
Shane McClinton, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT, Christopher Collazo, BS, Ebonie Vincent, DPM, Vassilios Vardaxis, PhD
J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, Epub 3 Jul 2016. doi:10.2519/jospt.2016.6482

 

So we now have:
1 cross sectional case control study showing a weakness (the above study)
3 prospective studies showing an increase in strength (that the above authors did not even references!)(one unpublished)
1 cross sectional study showing orthotic group stronger (unpublished but in public domain))

interesting to see how much cherry picking goes no with the above study.

 

So does this study show? a correlation but doesn't show? causation?

 

Exactly; it doesn't show causation.

It could well be that those with weaker muscles are more likely to be in orthotics (or not). ie confounding by indication

It will be interesting to see how this pans out in social media; I have a number of alerts set up on it to monitor, but nothing yet.

 

The abstract doesn't always tell the truth, but from that alone I would question how well it has been completed and written if they've used that as their abstract conclusion...

I wonder if they discussed what type of orthotics they used? If the patients have orthotics and still have heel pain, you really wonder why they still have pain and what effect that could have on the results? If the design is underdone then would that be a cause as to why these people are weaker? Are the people that are assymptomatic simply have the correct prescription and function better?

On a closer look, there isn't anything to state that the control group are even in orthotics! So much for a "control"...

 

Its taken a while, but I final see some fan boys have found this paper and posting about it in social media