Many rules in medicine are just guidelines, and may or may not apply to your patient. You need to learn that there are general rules of a profession or discipline, and there are golden rules (rules that you will need to create for yourself, or accept as TRUTH for you) that will guide your practice of medicine. A general rule is a guideline, whereas a golden rule should not be broken at least by you. For example, the general rule in podiatry is that lateral foot pain is from over supination and medial foot pain is from over pronation syndromes. The exceptions to this general rule are numerous like lateral foot and ankle impingement syndromes from over pronation, and posterior tibial tendons issues from over supination. Therefore, general rules are guidelines with exceptions.
What are some of the general rules we use in our Biomechanics practice? Again, they may not apply to the patient in front of you right now, but you must know them as they form the basis of our initial treatment of patients. To make this alittle fun, I will keep the answers a paragraph below general rule #10.
#1 Custom orthotic devices with an extrinsic reafoot post are normally designed with ? degrees of motion.
#2 We can help medial knee compartment problems with ? wedging at the foot.
#3 Chronic metatarsalgia, or any metatarsal pain, should be treated with stretching of the ? tendon.
#4 Patients with bone pain should have ? testing.
#5 A moderate to high degree of heel ? in RCSP should be corrected in first metatarsal phalangeal joint pain.
#6 A limb length discrepancy equal to or over ? can cause problems in an elite athlete.
#7 Abnormal pronation produces excessive ? rotation of the limb, ankle, and foot.
#8 The ? hip rotators should be strengthened with over pronation syndromes
#9 ? is one of the most common methods to block moderate to severe forefoot abduction on the rearfoot.
#10 ? padding is a common help for Morton's Neuroma pain.
#1 4 degrees for shock absorption
#2 Valgus
#3 Achilles
#4 Vitamin D
#5 Eversion
#6 1/16 inch
#7 Internal
#8 External
#9 Lateral Phalange
#10 Metatarsal
