Measuring foot and ankle injury outcomes: common scales and checklists.

Functional health outcome measures are increasingly being used in both clinica trials and practice as measures of patient health. Whilst outcome measures can be generic, there are a number of foot and ankle specific measures available and in use. These are being used as not only region specific but also disease specific measures of patient function. Unfortunately not all of these outcome measures have been completely validated which leads to challenges in applying the results of outcomes research to specific patients. Continued work however is being done in this area and these challenges provide opportunities for further investigation into the role of functional outcome scores specific to the foot and ankle.