Patients with plantar fasciitis, marked by heel pain during weight-bearing activities, can use either an app-linked stretching ball or a traditional ball for the management of clinical symptoms.
The application-linked massage ball did not show a significant advantage over the traditional stretching ball in improving symptoms of chronic plantar fasciitis, as per a recent study issued in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Seok Chang Ryu et al. investigated the effectiveness of an application-linked massage ball versus a traditional stretching ball in people with chronic plantar fasciitis. The application-linked device records rolling time and force, providing meticulous feedback via a smartphone app.
Fourteen participants with persistent plantar fasciitis were divided into two groups: a simple massage ball group with 8 people and an application-linked massage ball group with 6 people. Clinical outcomes were evaluated at the start of the study and after 1 month, 2 months and 3 months, using the Manchester–Oxford Foot Questionnaire (MOXFQ) score as the primary measure.
Initial MOXFQ scores were similar between the two groups. Over time, there was no noteworthy overall improvement in MOXFQ scores for all participants (p = 0.131). Further analysis exposed no significant difference in score improvement between the two groups, nor any significant group-by-time interactions.
The application-linked massage ball did not significantly outperform the traditional stretching ball for chronic plantar fasciitis, stressing the need for further clinical research with acute cases to study potential benefits.
Journal of Clinical Medicine
Clinical Efficacy of Application-Linked Stretching Ball as Digital Therapeutics in Plantar Fasciitis
Seok Chang Ryu et al.
Comments (0)