Mechanical Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis A Prospective Study - Essay Example

The reader's attention is caught and the reader is encouraged to read the report further, even though the author has not noted anything about the implication of the results. In addition, the abstract is presented in the form of the summary. Introduction is quite long (occupies two pages out of seven) but the author has set a good basis for the research, its purpose and limitations. At the beginning of the article, the authors provide general information about plantar fasciitis: how and why it occurs, what are the symptoms, why it should be treated, what the outcomes of treatment/non-treatment and other factors that are necessary to understand the aim and results of the research.

The authors have taken 5 studies of plantar fasciitis treatment: one of the studies was devoted to traditional treatment: anti-inflammatory therapy which is proved to be highly ineffective, the other four studies were devoted to the mechanical therapies with the majority of author agreeing that the mechanical treatment is much more effective and can lead to 100 % beneficial result. Currently there is the debate regarding which therapy is more effective. The last sentence of this section states "the purpose of this prospective, randomized study was to evaluate the effectiveness of three different mechanical modalities -over-the-counter arch supports, custom-made orthoses, and night splints-used in the treatment of plantar fasciitis.

" Thus the authors have made it clear what the following section will be about. It is very important that the authors have not only provided the justification for the necessity and value of this research, they have also used evidence from already existing researches - more than 30 references have been made. However, the authors did not set the criteria for evaluation of the results for validity and reliability. From the other side, it has been stated that the results will be visible and can be reported by patients; therefore, the measurement is obvious.

The literature review is long enough to include the major studies that are of interest to the reader and are closely related to the issue covered. The authors did not omit anything and covered both sides of the argument: traditional v. mechanical treatment of plantar fasciitis and made it clear that the traditional treatment will not be taken into consideration at all due to low rate of effectiveness. The selected samples of the sources are limited, but the studies mentioned are not only summarized by commented as well.

Method and Sampling The method section is highly organized and clear. Authors have presented and discussed all factors that were taken into account during research. It is stated that there were 255 patients aged 21 to 70 with plantar heel pain without previous trauma, out these patients 65 percent were women. The selection was random and there is a note about why some patients were not taken into a study. The section gives the answers to all possible questions: in the introductory part the author have established the basis for selection of treatment therapies (rigid over-the-counter, injection and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), duration, number of hours being on feet, pre-study examination, follow up and visits, random assignment to groups and receiving of the consent.