Validated 60-Second General Foot Screen: A Pilot Trial and Guide to Diagnoses and Treatment.

GENERAL PURPOSE: To provide information on a 60-second General Foot Screen to assist in the prevention and/or identification and management of common foot problems.

TARGET AUDIENCE: This continuing education activity is intended for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurses with an interest in skin and wound care.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES/OUTCOMES: After participating in this educational activity, the participant should be better able to:1. Use the 60-second General Foot Screen to assist healthcare professionals in the recognition of common foot problems.2. Identify risk factors, causes, and treatment of selected foot problems.

ABSTRACT: Foot health is important to overall patient health. Early diagnosis and treatment of diabetes, neuropathy, fungal foot infections, foot deformity, and vascular disease/lower leg edema can improve patient quality of life. One way to achieve this is effective screening. To this end, researchers piloted a validated 10-item screening tool to assess foot health on 120 patients; 74.17% had at least one positive abnormality, demonstrating the critical importance of these early findings. Only 25.83% of individuals had completely low-risk feet. This easy-to-use tool can assist healthcare professionals in the recognition and treatment of common foot problems. The article also outlines the early signs of disease by screening item and provides a guide to treatment to enable effective prevention and quality care.