TREATMENT OF PLANTAR FASCIITIS

Abstract

Plantar fasciitis (PF) is the inflammation of the dense tissue that occupies the anterior part of the internal tubercle of the calcaneus and is the most frequent cause of pain in the sole of the feet, significantly hindering an individual's work performance. It is the most common cause of pain in this area of the body in adults. There are very few clinical practice guidelines on the subject, and existing research is scarce. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the different types of treatments for plantar fasciitis reported in the literature. To conduct this work, a bibliographic survey was carried out in the Cochrane Library Plus and Medline databases, where the descriptors used were: plantar fasciitis, physiotherapy specialty, and treatment. Additionally, Lilacs IBECS, IME, PEDro, and Enfispo were searched using the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS): plantar fasciitis, therapy, pain, and physiotherapy as the search strategy. For the search of original studies in the Medline database, for example, the following search equations were used: "plantar fasciitis" AND "physiotherapy specialty", "treatment" AND "plantar fasciitis", in Portuguese and English. It can be concluded that plantar fasciitis affects a large number of adults, especially those over 40 years old. To recover from this injury, different methods can be applied that serve to alleviate or improve the condition totally or partially. For the treatment of plantar fasciitis, many interventions have been described with a wide variety of physiotherapeutic techniques, with the combination of more than one of these techniques being the most frequent. Their effectiveness has been proven in most cases.