Paediatric Podiatry – What is it? Why is it important?

At Hunter Podiatry, we’ve been keeping the people of the Hunter on their feet for over 40 years!

We pride ourselves on providing an amazing experience for all our patients in helping them achieve their goals. Children are some of the most important patients we see. Their development is quick and their scope of injury is very broad.

We consider our role in their development super important- we want your kids to grow and develop into strong, independent young people. We want them to be able to compete with their

peers pain-free and to develop a healthy relationship with physical activity.

Children’s physical development is so important. But how do you know if your child’s feet and legs are healthy?

Flat feet are incredibly common in children younger than 10 and are a normal part of development- children are much more flexible early in life and change physically everyday.

But, how do you know if your child’s posture or function is normal? Will it lead to issues down the track?

Is there something more sinister occurring?

Our cursory biomechanical assessment, coupled with our ‘pre assessment information’ will help us categorise each child into a risk category. We use evidence based assessments and clinical experience to make a judgement on whether your child may need further intervention or not.

Our biomechanical assessments include tests like walking, running,

jumping, hopping and skipping to see how strong your child’s muscles are, see how their feet and legs move while doing activity as well as checking posture and movement patterns.

We will also be checking the posture in a standing still position. We will look at the feet, ankles, knees and hips to see if they have bowed legs or knocked knees, if the feet roll in or roll out at the ankle, as well as if the feet are pointed out or pointed in.

If we do notice something out of the ordinary, we can organise a time for you to come into our Rutherford clinic for a detailed assessment and further recommendations and/ or treatment if required.

Common paediatric conditions we treat;

– Postural fatigue

– Sever’s Disease

– Patello-femoral pain

– Neurological conditions; Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, Chacot-Marie Tooth

– Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA)

– Ingrowing toenails

– Fungal toenails

– Plantar warts

Please reach out if you have any questions!

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