Hallux Valgus, also known as "bunion", is a common deformity of the forefoot that affects one in four adults and a third of the elderly, with a prevalence of 80% in women. This pathology distorts alignment and destabilises the mechanical balance of the foot, causing pain under the forefoot, disrupting walking and increasing the risk of falls. Even today, a third of patients are dissatisfied with the surgical treatment intended to correct the deformity and allow a return to everyday activities.
This is mainly due to the rate of complications resulting from the operation. In the short term, these are essentially the need to repeat a surgical procedure and, in the long term, chronic pain.
When a patient suffers from these symptoms, he or she first consults an orthopaedic surgeon, who carries out, among others, a clinical examination to assess the biomechanical balance of the forefoot. This manual palpation enables instability of the midfoot joints to be detected, and thus guides the surgeon in choosing the most suitable surgical option (if surgery is required).
However, the results obtained depend largely on the way in which the examination is carried out, and vary according to the subjective judgement of each surgeon.
For this purpose, our team has developed an assessment tool called LaxiPed, which objectively measures forefoot instability in a position simulating a load under the foot. Following the same biomechanical approach as the manual examination, this instrument assesses the deformation of the tarsometatarsal joints as a function of an applied force by proposing a series of indicators.
To reduce the impact of the human factor, the measurement is fully automated, enabling quantitative data to be collected quickly and reliably, making it perfectly adapted for use in the consulting room.
This project has received Innosuisse funding (without an implementation partner) from 2022 to 2024. It was carried out in collaboration with the ASSAL centre in Geneva and Professor Sylvain Hugon's laboratory at HEIG-VD. In addition, a start-up company is being set up by Quentin Praz and Spyridon Schoinas to continue the development and marketing of this tool.
Project partner(s)
Project leader - team
Jeremy Olivier
(HEPIA),
Quentin Praz
(HEPIA),
Spyridon Schoinas
(HEPIA),
Julien Voëffray
(HEPIA),
Philippe Passeraub (HEPIA)
,
Florent Glück
(HEPIA),
Giovanni Mangano
(HEPIA),
Gabriel Da Silva Marques (HEPIA)
,
René Beuchat (HEPIA)