Comparative Study between the Effect of Functional Foot Orthosis and Modified Orthosis on Improvement of Pain in Patients with Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar fascia inflammation will result in plantar fasciitis. Nonsurgical treatments include the use of orthosis and physical therapy techniques. The goal of this study was a comparison between the effect of functional foot orthosis and modified foot orthosis on improvement of pain in patients with plantar fasciitis. In this experimental study, 30 patients with plantar fasciitis including 7 male and 23 female, age 25-45 yrs old (34±4.64, 35±5.02), were selected by non probability sampling. Patients were randomly allocated in two groups with 15 patients in each group. First group used functional foot orthosis and second group used modified foot orthosis. FAOS questionnaire was used for evaluating the pain, once before intervention and once 4 weeks after the intervention. Data were analyzed using paired and independent T-test and Smironov-Kolomogrov in SPSS13. The difference between groups with functional foot orthosis, before and after the intervention was 0.001, using paired T-test and it was 0.229 in group with modified foot orthosis. Independent T-Test showed a significant difference between two groups after the intervention (p<0.05). According to the findings of this study, functional foot orthosis was more effective on improvement of pain in patients with plantar fasciitis than modified foot orthosis.