A patient presents with an acute foot injury and an antalgic gait. What should you do first?

A patient presents with an acute foot injury and an antalgic gait. What should you do first?

• A. Observe and palpate the injured area for gross deformity and point tenderness
• B. Apply ice for 20 minutes
• C. Start jogging to assess tolerance
• D. Prescribe pain medication and continue

Answer: (A)

In an acute foot injury with an antalgic (painful) gait, the first priority is to assess the injury's structure and location of pain. Observing the area for swelling, deformity, and how the foot sits helps you detect obvious problems, while palpating the injured region identifies precise point tenderness. This combination gives immediate clues about whether the injury could be a fracture, dislocation, or soft-tissue injury, and it guides decisions about immobilization, protected weight-bearing, and whether urgent imaging or referral is needed. If a deformity is present or there is focal tenderness, you treat this as a sign to immobilize and evaluate further, rather than proceeding with risky weight-bearing or improvising treatment without information. Ice and other supportive measures can be added after the initial assessment to control swelling, but they don’t replace the need to inspect and palpate to determine the injury's severity. Starting to jog to test tolerance could worsen an undiagnosed fracture or severe sprain, and prescribing pain medication without evaluation misses the crucial step of determining the appropriate course of action based on the injury’s severity.

In an acute foot injury with an antalgic (painful) gait, the first priority is to assess the injury's structure and location of pain. Observing the area for swelling, deformity, and how the foot sits helps you detect obvious problems, while palpating the injured region identifies precise point tenderness. This combination gives immediate clues about whether the injury could be a fracture, dislocation, or soft-tissue injury, and it guides decisions about immobilization, protected weight-bearing, and whether urgent imaging or referral is needed.

If a deformity is present or there is focal tenderness, you treat this as a sign to immobilize and evaluate further, rather than proceeding with risky weight-bearing or improvising treatment without information. Ice and other supportive measures can be added after the initial assessment to control swelling, but they don’t replace the need to inspect and palpate to determine the injury's severity. Starting to jog to test tolerance could worsen an undiagnosed fracture or severe sprain, and prescribing pain medication without evaluation misses the crucial step of determining the appropriate course of action based on the injury’s severity.