Leg Length Discrepancies...

Everyone has a leg length discrepancy (LLD) of some sort, whether it be 1 mm or 1 cm. An interesting way to check which leg is shorter was shown to us in our Obstetrics and Osteopathy technique class on Thursday. I later used this in clinic on Friday afternoon and it made life a little easier!

Firstly you have to obtain consent to lower the patients underwear so you can see the gluteal cleft. The cleft will point to the left or the right (unless it points straight up which means your patient does not have a LLD, but like I mentioned earlier, apparently we all have some sort of LLD!). The side which the cleft points to is the shorter leg, therefore if the cleft points to the right, the right leg is shorter. This can further be confirmed by asking the patient to bend their left knee, whilst keeping their heel on the ground, thereby leveling out the pelvis. If the were to bend their right knee you would see the pelvis dip significantly.

The diagram does not show much in way of which leg is shorter, but I thought it would be amusing to have a cleft on show to liven up this blog!