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A vertical talus or a congenital vertical talus is a uncommon disability of the foot that is usually found at birth. It is an extreme type of flatfoot that may impact one or both feet. The talus is small bone within the ankle that points frontward in a horizontal direction and sits between the tibia and fibula bones of the leg and the heel bone to form the ankle joint structure. With a foot that has a congenital vertical talus, the talus bone points down towards the floor in a vertical position. The outcomes with this can be a inflexible and rigid foot without any arch which is frequently termed as a rocker bottom foot. The condition may appear on it's own or may be part of a wider syndrome including arthrogryposis or spina bifida. There is also a less severe kind of this problem called oblique talus that is halfway between the vertical and horizontal types of the talus. This type is far more flexible and only appears when weightbearing.

A congenital vertical talus is commonly clinically diagnosed at birth, however it can sometimes be found with sonography in the pregnancy. An assessment of the foot will probably identify the issue and is used to determine exactly how rigid it is. There is commonly no pain initially, however, if it's left untreated the foot will stay disfigured and with later walking it is going to commonly turn out to be symptomatic. An x-ray should clearly see the talus in a abnormal vertical alignment. A number of doctors look at a congenital vertical talus as a slight form of a clubfoot.

Usually, some surgical procedures are usually needed to correct the congenital vertical talus deformity. Having said that, the orthopaedic doctor may like to consider using a amount of stretching or casting in an attempt to increase the mobility and posture of the foot. While in only a few cases will this eliminate the necessity of surgical treatment altogether it is more likely to reduce the total amount and extent of surgery that is needed and lead to a far better final result from surgery. Casting is needed over a number of visits and changed weekly to help keep moving the foot into a much more fixed position. When there is not enough of an improvement using this process then surgery will likely be needed. The level of the surgical treatment may depend on just how much the casting changed the foot and just how rigid the problem is. When the foot is rigidly deformed, then the surgery will have to be a lot more considerable and is generally carried out just prior to one year old. The whole purpose of the surgery is to improve the positioning of the bones within the foot. To get this done normally needs a few tendons and ligaments to become extended to allow for the bones of the foot to be moved. Those bones are then kept in place with pins and placed within a splint. These pins usually get taken out following 4 to 6 weeks. A special shoe or brace may need to be worn for a period of time just after that to preserve the correction.

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