The Ponseti Method to Treat Club Foot

Ignacio Vives Ponseti developed a noninvasive method for treating congenital club foot in the US during the late 1940s. Congenital club foot is a deformity that affects the tissues in the lower leg and foot such that the foot abnormally turns inwards and upwards. Ponseti developed the method after noting that an affected infant's tissues are malleable and could respond to gentle correction instead of the surgeries that surgeons used to treat club foot at the time. The Ponseti method consists of a series of manual manipulations followed by setting the affected foot in a cast to gradually realign the foot. The Ponseti method became widelyused in the 1990s as doctors and families of affected infants gained interest in effective, nonsurgical treatments for club-foot. By the twenty-first century, orthopedists worldwide used the Ponseti method to treat infants and children born with club-foot to normalize their foot abnormality so that they grow without disability.