Analysis of the medial longitudinal arch in adolescents users of high heeled shoes

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of high heeled shoes in foot´s medial longitudinal arch in adolescents. Eighty two female adolescents between 13 and 20 years old participated, being 54 non-users of high heleed shoes (control group - GC) and 28 usuaries (experimental group - GE). The footprints of both feet were collected to analyse the medial longitudinal arch (ALM), before and after 30 minutes using a shoe with heel high given by the examiner, an then evaluated by Chippaux-Smirak index (ICS) and Cavanagh & Rodgers Arch index (ICR). The Shapiro-Wilks test was performed to evaluate data normality. For paired comparisons, paired Student's t-test was used in case of parametric data, and the Wilcoxon test in non-parametric data. In non-paired comparisons was used the Student's t-test and the Mann-Whitney test with a level of significance of 0.05. There was a difference between right and left only in CG before the use of the shoe given by the examiner. Comparing before and after the use of this shoe, a difference was noticed only on left foot in CG by ICS. There wasn't any significative difference between CG and EG. Although the results haven´t shown changes in ALM, it must be remembered this is only a static measure, being necessary studies of the dinamic component and the chronic use of high heeled shoes to correlate with the findings of this work.