It may also occur as a result of hip replacement surgery or knee ligament reconstruction surgery. Signs and symptoms
Foot drop is characterized by steppage gait. While walking, people suffering the condition drag their toes along the ground or bend their knees to lift their foot higher than usual to avoid the dragging. This serves to raise the foot high enough to prevent the toe from dragging and prevents the slapping. To accommodate the toe drop, the patient may use a characteristic tiptoe walk on the opposite leg, raising the thigh excessively, as if walking upstairs, while letting the toe drop. Other gaits such as a wide outward leg swing (to avoid lifting the thigh excessively or to turn corners in the opposite direction of the affected limb) may also indicate foot drop.Patients with painful disorders of sensation (dysesthesia) of the soles of the feet may have a similar gait but do not have foot drop. Because of the extreme pain evoked by even the slightest pressure on the feet, the patient walks as if walking barefoot on hot sand. Pathophysiology
The causes of foot drop, as for all causes of neurological lesions, should be approached using a localization-focused approach before etiologies are considered. Most of the time, foot drop is the result of neurological disorder; only rarely is the muscle diseased or nonfunctional.
Sometimes it is not visible and the diagnosis is done by actually hearing the slap. Treated systematically, possible lesion sites causing foot drop include (going from peripheral to central):

Neuromuscular disease;
Peroneal nerve (common, i.e., frequent) —chemical, mechanical, disease;
Sciatic nerve—direct trauma, iatrogenic;
Lumbosacral plexus;
L5 nerve root (common, especially in association with pain in back radiating down leg);
Cauda equina syndrome, which is caused by impingement of the nerve roots within the spinal canal distal to the end of the spinal cord;
Spinal cord (rarely causes isolated foot drop) —poliomyelitis, tumor;
Brain (uncommon, but often overlooked) —stroke, TIA, tumor;
Genetic (as in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease and hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies);
Nonorganic causes, e.g. as part of a functional neurological symptom disorder.If the L5 nerve root is involved, the most common cause is a herniated disc. Other causes of foot drop are diabetes (due to generalized peripheral neuropathy), trauma, motor neuron disease (MND), adverse reaction to a drug or alcohol, and multiple sclerosis. Gait cycle
Drop foot and foot drop are interchangeable terms that describe an abnormal neuromuscular disorder that affects the patients ability to raise their foot at the ankle. Drop foot is further characterized by an inability to point the toes toward the body (dorsiflexion) or move the foot at the ankle inward or outward. Therefore, the normal gait cycle is affected by the drop foot syndrome. The normal gait cycle is as follows:

Swing phase (SW): The period of time when the foot is not in contact with the ground.