Left or Right foot or just mix them

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Hi,

In the line of the discussion on the (NOT) pooling of feet in research, I was wondering if there is any ground in research for choosing a Left or Right foot. What is methodological correct.
1) Do you choose a side and stick with it? OR
2) Do you mix feet not to let other factors (i.e. the preference of hand of the researcher) create a bias?

Thanks
K.

 

1) flip a coin and stick with it.
2)I'd want to see that there was no statistically significant difference between the right and left feet in the variable that you wish to measure first. SO... you need to measure both anyway. :bash:

 

Agreed. I had a student look into this last year and it did not matter.

You can:
1) Use the left or right foot
2) Randomly pick a foot each time

 

Super guys!

Thanks for the reply!
We were going to randomly select a left or right foot per subject and stick with it through the process...

Craig,
Are the results published on the research done last year by your student? I suppose this would be the first on this subject, but interesting to use as reference?

Cheers
Ken

 

It was not really part of their research. What they did was went looking extensivly in the literature to see if there was any rationale or evidence for using just the left or right foot or randomly pick a foot. They could not find any reasons, consensus, rationale or evidence for doing it one way or the other....for no other reason than the 'mood we were in' and the 'moon was full', we went with the right foot only for the research.

 

So do you think hand/eye dominance (from the researchers point of view) is a point of discussion if you only use the right (/left) foot?

 

I thing the consensus is that there is no consensus.

We did have a previous thread on leg/foot dominance and we were left with the consensus as to which was the dominate limb:
Is it the limb we prefer kick a ball with, the dominant limb?
Is it the limb we prefer to balance on when we kick a ball, the dominant limb?

The conclusion that the student reached when looking in the literature, is that it didn't matter how you picked the foot, as long it was consistent and you stuck to it.

 

So the same discussion would be for the hand dominance of the researcher?
I suppose that the hand used for palpating and writing/drawing bisections, ... is the dominant hand? But does it influences the results of the examination...? Are right handed pods better (intratest) in manipulating/drawing bisections/SJA(kirby) a left foot with a patient is lying prone?

I will have to go into the lit. and see if there is anything on this in other disciplines... If you have any thoughts, let me know!

Thanks again!