Leg Length Discrepancy Shoe Insoles
What is leg length discrepancy?
Limb length or Leg length discrepancy or leg shortening is the inequality between the lengths of the person’s arms or legs. Excluding the rare cases, inequality in arm’s length doesn’t usually impact the function of arms and usually does not require any kind of treatment.
But however, a discrepancy in leg length, usually becomes clear to parents as their child grows and starts to walk on his/her own.
It is an astonishing fact that only 25 % people in the world with two legs actually have equal length of legs. In most of the cases, the difference between the two is diminutive and the person will likely go his/her entire life cycle without even being aware of the incongruity as well as also not being affected by it. It has been found out that the differences in length of over 2 cm are rare. Some children are affected by leg shortening since their birth. While in many other cases, some kind of prolonged illness or even an injury causes a discrepancy in length to develop over the gradual period of time.
An inequality of minimal degree may not cause symptoms, but a significant difference between the two can cause a discernible hobble and make it difficult for a child to play, run or walk.
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Treatment for a discrepancy varies according to the extent of the leg shortening. In a lot of cases, an insignificant difference in leg length can be covered by wearing a lift in the shoe of the shorter leg. A child with a more significant difference, however, may benefit from surgery to make his or her legs the same length. This can be done in a number of ways, but is most often accomplished through a procedure that delays or eventually stops growth in the longer leg.
Treatment of Leg length discrepancy may involve:
- Epiphysiodesis: Epiphysiodesis is a trustworthy treatment method that stops the growth of the longer leg. It is advised against the skeletally mature patients, and the final leg length discrepancy and the extent of growth inhibition need to be predicted and are subject to errors. Because the procedure effectively shortens the longer leg and is commonly performed on the unaffected side, it could be discomforting to the patient and his family.
- Prosthetics: These devices may work well for some patients with a very large magnitude of deformities who would not benefit from other lengthening or shortening procedures being done to the affected person.
- Shortening techniques can be performed after skeletal maturity to gain leg length equality. Shortening can be performed in the proximal femur using a hip screw or blade plate, in the mid-diaphysis of the femur using a closed intramedullary technique or in the tibia.
- Non surgical treatments: If the patient’s leg length shortening is medium in magnitude, generally less than one inch, it is usually treated without the involvement of surgical options.
Custom insoles play a major role in the treatment of leg shortening. The help in:
- Proper foot alignment.
- Managing tissue stress level to a tolerable level.
- Gait analysis proves helpful in designing custom insoles, which works towards restoring normal mobility of the patient.
- Providing support to the shorter leg.
- Distributing body pressure, hence managing abnormality caused by length difference.
- Proper fit for each individual as they are custom designed.
