A vertical talus or a congenital vertical talus is a infrequently found deformity of the foot that is typically found at birth. It is an extreme kind of flatfoot which can affect one or the two feet. The talus bone is small bone in the rearfoot that points forward generally in a horizontal direction and sits amongst the tibia and fibula bones of lower leg and the heel bone to make the ankle joint complex. In a foot that has a congenital vertical talus, the talus bone points down towards the ground in a vertical posture. The results with this is usually a stiff and rigid foot without any arch which is often known as a rocker bottom foot. The problem can occur on it’s own or may be part of a wider syndrome including arthrogryposis or spina bifida. There is also a less severe kind of this problem known as oblique talus which is halfway between the horizontal and vertical types of the talus. This sort is a lot more flexible and only appears when standing.
The congenital vertical talus is typically recognized at birth, however it can sometimes be detected with ultrasound examination in the pregnancy. An examination of the feet will normally identify the problem and is used to determine precisely how inflexible it is. There is commonly no pain initially, but if it is not treated the foot will stay deformed and with later walking it is going to typically become symptomatic. An x-ray should certainly pick up the talus in a more vertical position. A number of doctors consider a congenital vertical talus as a mild type of a clubfoot.
Generally, some surgical treatment is typically needed to fix the congenital vertical talus disability. However, the orthopaedic surgeon may want to use a amount of stretching out or bracing to try and improve the mobility and position of the foot first. While in just a few cases will this eliminate the requirement for surgical procedures completely it is more likely to decrease the amount and magnitude of surgery that is needed and lead to a far better outcome from surgery. Bracing is needed over a number of clinic visits and replaced weekly to help keep moving the foot into a a lot more fixed position. If there is too little of an improvement using this process then surgery will most likely be required. The extent of the surgical treatment may rely on precisely how much the casting modified the foot and just how inflexible the disability is. If the foot is rigidly misshaped, then this surgery will have to be much more considerable and it is usually carried out just prior to one year of age. The whole purpose of the surgical procedures are to improve the position of the bones inside the foot. To accomplish this normally needs some tendons and ligaments to become extended to allow the bones in the foot to be relocated. Those bones will be locked in position using pins and placed within a splint. These bone pins generally get taken out after 4 to 6 weeks. A special shoe or splint may need to be used for a period of time following that to retain correction.