A congenital vertical talus is a uncommon deformity of the foot that is usually present at birth. It is an extreme type of flat foot that might impact one or the two feet. The talus bone is a smaller bone within the ankle that points frontward in a horizontal direction and sits between the tibia and fibula bones of the leg and the heel bone to make the ankle joint structure. With a foot with congenital vertical talus, the talus bone is directed towards the ground in a vertical direction. The implications with this is a inflexible and rigid foot with no arch that is often called a rocker bottom foot. The problem can arise by itself or might be part of a bigger syndrome such as arthrogryposis or spina bifida. There is also a less serious form of this deformity called oblique talus which is halfway between the horizontal and vertical kinds of the talus. This type is a lot more flexible and only shows up when weightbearing.
A congenital vertical talus is usually clinically diagnosed at birth, but it can occasionally be discovered on sonography in the pregnancy. An evaluation of the feet will generally show the issue and it is used to identify precisely how inflexible it is. There is commonly no pain initially, but if it's not dealt with the foot will continue to be disfigured and with later weightbearing it is going to generally become painful. An x-ray will obviously observe the talus in its increased vertical placement. Some doctors look at a congenital vertical talus as a mild type of a clubfoot.
Normally, some surgical procedures are usually necessary to correct the congenital vertical talus disability. Nevertheless, the orthopaedic doctor might choose to try a period of stretching out or bracing to try and increase the mobility and position of the foot. While in not very many cases will this do away with the requirement for surgery treatment completely it is more likely to help reduce the total amount and extent of surgery that is needed and lead to a much better end result from surgery. Casting is required over a number of visits and replaced weekly to keep moving the foot right into a much more corrected placement. When there is insufficient of an improvement because of this approach then surgical procedures will likely be needed. The amount of the surgical procedures might rely on precisely how much the casting altered the foot and exactly how inflexible the deformity is. In the event the foot is rigidly misshaped, then this surgical treatment will need to be much more considerable and it is generally completed just prior to 1 year of age. The entire purpose of the surgery is to fix the position of the bones inside the foot. To accomplish this typically needs several tendons and ligaments to be lengthened allowing the bones of the foot to be re-positioned. These bones will be kept in place using screws and placed within a splint. These bone pins generally get taken out following four to six weeks. A special shoe or splint might need to be used for a period of time soon after that to retain correction.