Biomechanical characteristics of the feet of 5-6-year-old children with mental retardation

Abstract

Introduction. In Ukraine today, there is a decline in the level of ‘nation’s health’ as an integrative indicator of social, mental and physical health of citizens, especially preschool children. Nowadays, almost 80% of children have one or more diseases, and every third child has physical or mental disabilities. The problem of preschool children with mental retardation (MR) has been an acute issue for psychological and pedagogical science for a long time. It is worth noting that the steady increase in the number of preschool children with various disorders of the functional state of the musculoskeletal system, as one of the characteristics of the spatial organisation of the human body, is a concern for many specialists. The problematic range of disorders of the biomechanical properties of the human foot, which for many years has remained the focus of attention of domestic and foreign scientists. The purpose of the study is to determine the biomechanical features of the foot of children aged 5-6 with MR. Research methods: analysis of special scientific and methodological literature, pedagogical experiment, videometry, pedagogical experiment. Indicators of the sagittal profile of children’s feet were studied using the programme “Big Foot” and methods of mathematical statistics. The experiment involved 15 children aged 5-6 with MR. The results. In recent years, researchers have created a significant scientific body of information on the interdependence of changes in the bone geometry of the foot components that provide its support and resistance function, the biomechanical properties of the skeletal muscles of the lower extremities and human health. The obtained data on the biomechanical parameters of the foot in children aged 5-6 with MR provides important information about its support and resistance features. These data are important for determining the structure and function of the foot, and their values can be used to analyse the biomechanical properties of the foot in children with MR. Conclusions. It was found that children aged 5-6 with MR have specific features in the biomechanical parameters of the foot compared to practically healthy peers. In the studied boys with MR, statistically significant differences were found in the metatarsal and calcaneal angles, which were smaller than the corresponding parameters in practically healthy boys, and in the γ angle, which characterises the spring properties of the foot as a whole, which was blunter compared to practically healthy boys. These differences may indicate certain anatomical and biomechanical features of their foot. In girls with MR, differences in some foot parameters were less distinct than in boys. This again points to different aspects of the development of foot biomechanics in girls compared to boys.