Foot Impairments and Overuse Injuries in Long Distance Runners—A Prospective Study for the Prevalence

Abstract

Overuse injuries are common in long distance runners. Previous studies have had runners’ self-report injuries rather than having a medical professional provide a clear statistics—a major reason for the inconsistencies in reported incident proportion of the overuse injuries in long distance runners. To explain overuse injury prevalence, injury severity and the anatomical location and to find the effectiveness of footwear modification in the most prevalent overuse injury. A prospective study with 174 long distance runners screened by the investigator for foot impairments and interviewed for the overuse injuries twice during six months. They were interviewed for the presence or new occurrence of overuse injuries and the location of the injury. As the pain was the main symptom in the overuse injury, the severity of pain was evaluated with numerical pain rating scale. The injury data were recorded and analysed. The runners with most prevalent overuse injury were attempted to manage with footwear modification with a comparative group receiving conventional exercises. The prevalence of running-related overuse injury in long distance in all anatomical locations was 65.52%. The frequently reported locations were ankle and foot. Also found that 43 runners had anatomical impairments in their feet and the prevalence of overuse injury in that group was 82%. Plantar fasciitis was the most prevalent overuse injury found in these long distance runners. Prefabricated shoe insoles were given to the study group who were compared with the runners advised with the conventional exercises for plantar fasciitis. Running-related overuse injuries are highly prevalent in long distance runners, and the most prevalent overuse injury was found to be plantar fasciitis. The runners who used prefabricated shoe insoles during their running trials and events reported significant reduction of pain due to plantar fasciitis.