The Impact of Petrissage on Functional Measures of High-Heeled Shoe Wearers

Abstract

Background Many women enjoy wearing high heels despite knowing they can be harmful to the feet. There are many uncomfortable conditions that can originate from wearing this type of shoe leading to biomechanical changes in ankle joints. Hence the study is aimed to identify the effects of massage therapy in improving muscular flexibility among women wearing high heels Methodology Forty female participants with chronic heel pain were included in the single-blinded randomized controlled trial. Participants were divided into Group-A (Stretching and deep heat) and Group-B (petrissage and deep heat) group. The treatment was performed for four weeks, 3 sessions/ week in both groups. Foot function index and ankle dorsiflexion were recorded at baseline and after 4 weeks of intervention. Results Forty female participants with a mean age of 28.23±6.24 were recruited in the study. Both groups showed significant improvement in all three variables i.e. pain, disability, and ankle dorsiflexion. However, group B showed more significant results with mean differences of 1.80±2.22 and 4.1±6.7 (p-value <0.05) for pain and disability respectively. A similar result was observed for ankle dorsiflexion in which a mean difference of 0.95±1.08 in the left ankle and 1.25±1.12 in the right ankle was observed. Conclusion Both treatment programs are highly effective in reducing pain, reducing disability, and improving the ankle joint ROM, but petrissage massage along with deep heating was found to be superior as compared to superficial heat with static stretching for females with chronic heel pain. Keywords Ankle joint, Disability, Massage, Pain, Range of motion