Drop foot, also know as foot drop, involves the ankle and foot muscles. Someone with drop foot has trouble controling the movements of the affected foot. Without this control, the foot cannot be raised properly to take a step and the gait is altered. This is where a drop foot brace can be very helpful.
The causes of drop foot are many and varied. There are underlying problems or diseases that must be discovered. The loss of control in a person’s foot and ankle resulting in foot drop is often caused by an injury to the person’s peroneal nerve, which runs along the outside of the leg between the bottom of the knee down through the foot to the toes. The peroneal nerve can be damaged by fractures to the leg or from other injuries sustained to the sciatic nerve, the main nerve in the leg. The most common cause of foot drop is a herniated lumbar disc near the bottom of the spine. A herniated lumbar disc affects the sciatic nerve and often causes a person to lose some control over the ankle and foot.
In the spine, herniated discs can be compared to jelly donuts. There is a gel in the middle of the disc surrounded by annular ligaments. This gel can push out the annular fibers causing direct pressure on the nerves. This will cause pain along the course of the spinal nerves. If the agravated nerve travels down the buttock to the thigh and leg, the symptoms will be in those areas.
When the nerves are agravated, symptoms can range from pain alone to pain, tingling, numbness and weakness in the leg. This is referred to as sciatica, simply meaning pain along the course of the sciatic nerve. This can be a very debilitating condition. If the weakness gets severe enough, it can result in what is known as “foot drop”. The person will have difficulty lifting his toes and foot upward, so the foot drags on the floor as he walks. If the condition worsens, he may require a foot drop brace or, maybe, eventually a wheel chair. Sometimes surgery may be effective with foot drop, depending on the severity of nerve damage. This is determined with multiple tests called electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies.