The effects of short foot exercises and arch support insoles on improvement in the medial longitudinal arch and dynamic balance of flexible flatfoot patients.

Only 14 university students were studied, all aged 21 to 26 with flexible flatfoot, so the findings may not apply to older adults, children, or people with painful or severe flatfoot. The groups had only seven participants each, and the paper does not report a sample size calculation, dropouts, or intention-to-treat analysis. The paper does not describe how randomisation was done, whether allocation was concealed, whether participants were blinded, or whether assessors were blinded. The insole group received arch insoles while walking, so the study cannot separate the effect of the insoles from the effect of walking. No untreated control group was included, and the paper does not report pain, function, gait, quality of life, adverse events, or long-term follow-up. The methods say five weeks, while the discussion says six weeks. The written results and Table 2 disagree about the Y-balance test: the text reports a between-group Y-balance difference, but the table marks only within-group significance. No primary outcome was explicitly named.

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Do not conclude that short foot exercises are better than arch insoles for all patients with flatfoot. The study included only 14 young university students, the insole group also walked, and the paper did not report blinding, dropouts, or long-term function.