Tonight I noticed an elderly gentleman with an odd gait to his walk: he had to lift his entire foot off the ground and plant it flatly, as some muscles in his lower legs did not allow him tolift the front of his foot from the ground as in normal walking.
You get that? :dubious:
Here’s what I mean…imagine standing and tapping your foot to a musical beat using your heel as a pivot point…this guy couldnt do that. His foot just hung limply at the end of his leg.
I’ve noticed this condition mainly in elderly men…and ONLY men, not women.
What is the medical name of this paralysis and what causes it?
a friend of mine severely damaged some tissue around his right ankle falling from about 4 feet. it might be tendons that were severed, but i dont remember exactly. he’s very young, not yet 30, and his right foot hangs limply exactly as you are describing. he has very little feeling in the foot, which makes it difficult for him to do things like clip his toenails or drive. when he walks, his foot actually kind of “hangs” to one side, and he steps on the OUTSIDE of the foot. When this part touches the ground, the rest of the foot kind of falls flat a moment after. if he shifts his weight even a little, he can easily twist his ankle and collapse.
i dont know what the medical name is or what causes it, however, except that i seem to remember something being wrong with tendons.
You seem to be describing a condition known as foot drop[or drop foot].
Having been a victiim of this condition for almost 14 years and I can tell you that mine is the result of spinal nerve damage.
I imagine that trauma to certain tendons can result in the same gait but the difference is that, with nerve damage, paralysis is the culprit.
The foot can be depressed[pointing the toes downward] but the foot cannot be elevated-[raising the toe section of the foot.]
One can depress the accellerator and rely on the spring action to raise the toes for decelleration.
If the problem is in the right foot driving is possible with an auto-tran by training your left foot to do the braking…–with the left foot in trauma you just learn to drive"lefty".
It’s a relatively easy thing to learn.
Other than that,except for being,and feeling, as clumsy as a pregnant cow-----------it’s a livable condition.
When it becomes too unendurable one does as I did----equip the vehicle with hand controls for the foot functions.
Hm. Interesting. After Eztrete’s post, I Googled “drop foot” ad found an interesting article that pretty much covers all the questions in the OP.
And it is more frequent in men than women ratio of 2.8 to 1.
Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that guys tend to play football and march around in the army more often, which may lead to just the right type of injury? I didn’t notice the article speculating why more men then women are afflicted, but I didn’t comb through it carefully.
My father suffered from drop foot for many years. It started off with one foot, and he had that odd gait to his walk. But then he developed it in the other foot, and could not walk from that point on, without the aid of a walker. He could stand up, but not without holding onto something. Actually he just used a wheelchair most of the time. Apparently there’s no cure.
