The importance of heel compression in the measurement of diurnal stature variation

✍ Scribed by T.K. Foreman; K. Linge

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 187 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-6870
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-6870(89)90194-4

✦ Synopsis

Heel pad thickness was measured in 20 subjects (18 males aged 21-39 years and two females aged 21 and 25 years) using a 2 MHz ultrasound transducer linked to an Echo Scan body composition meter, Thandar SC 110A oscilloscope and M 150 amplifier. With the subjects standing erect and weight-bearing equally through both feet, the average time to achieve equilibrium heel compression was 81.7 s. Compression of the heel pad soft tissue averaged 4.4 mm (range 0.8-8.9 mm). Following equilibrium with one foot weight-bearing, an additional average loss of 1.6 mm of thickness (range 0-4 mm) was observed occurring after an average time period of 51 s.

This study has confirmed the suspicion that heel pad shrinkage may be a confounding factor in measurements of change of stature. The results of this study have indicated that a period of 2 min is needed for the heel pad thickness to compress sufficiently before measurements are taken.