A “foot-drop” is a medical term which–thankfully–does not mean that the foot suddenly disconnects from the leg. Rather, it means that when the leg is lifted from the ground, the foot droops downward at the ankle. The muscles that are supposed to prop up the foot have become so weakened that they cannot overcome gravity’s downward pull. When people with this problem try to walk, they have to either hike the leg higher to clear their drooping toes or else risk tripping over them.
What is to blame for this inconvenient symptom? In truth, there are multiple possible causes, but one of the most common culprits is injury to a nerve-bundle in the leg known as the peroneal nerve. To understand how this nerve-bundle can get in trouble, a quick review of the bones of the leg is helpful. There is just one bone, a big one, that connects the hip to the knee, and that is the femur. There are two bones that connect the knee to the ankle. The tibia is the larger one and lies more to the inside, while the fibula is the thinner one and lies more to the outside. That’s the extent of the bony anatomy we need to know.
The nerve-fibers constituting...
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