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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Rethinking how we assess kids' joints: A new study of nearly 200 children aged 5–10 found that ankle muscle strength has little to no connection with foot posture or general joint hypermobility. Even after accounting for age, sex, and BMI, only a handful of weak associations surfaced. The findings suggest clinicians shouldn't rely on ankle strength alone to flag hypermobility in healthy kids.
Rethinking how we assess kids' joints
A cross-sectional study published in the European Journal of Pediatrics examined whether ankle muscle strength could serve as a useful clinical indicator of foot posture or joint hypermobility in children — and the answer is largely no. Researchers assessed 196 healthy children aged 5–10 at a Spanish school, measuring foot posture, general and lower-limb joint hypermobility, ankle range of motion, and isometric ankle strength across four directions.
The results showed no significant association between ankle muscle strength and either ankle dorsiflexion or generalized joint hypermobility. Foot posture also showed no meaningful link to strength in most comparisons. Region-specific (lower limb) hypermobility did show some weak correlations with certain strength measures, but these were modest and largely diminished after adjusting for age, sex, and BMI.
Key Takeaways
Why it matters: Clinicians often use muscle strength assessments as a proxy for joint stability and hypermobility screening in pediatric patients. This study signals that such assumptions may not hold up — prompting a need for more comprehensive, multi-measure approaches when evaluating musculoskeletal health in children.
