Trench foot
Trench foot can be prevented by keeping the feet clean, warm, and dry. It was also discovered in World War I that a key preventive measure was regular foot inspections; soldiers would be paired and each made responsible for the feet of the other, and they would generally apply whale oil to prevent trench foot. If left to their own devices, soldiers might neglect to take off their own boots and socks to dry their feet each day, but if it were the responsibility of another, this became less likely. Later on in the war, instances of trench foot began to decrease, probably as a result of the introduction of the aforementioned measures; of wooden duckboards to cover the muddy, wet, cold ground of the trenches; and of the increased practice of troop rotation, which kept soldiers from prolonged time at the front.
Foot and ankle surgery
The vast majority of foot and ankle conditions do not require surgical intervention. For example, several phalangeal conditions may be traced to the type of foot box used in a shoe, and a change of a shoe or shoe box may be sufficient to treat the condition. For inflammatory processes such as rheumatoid arthritis, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDS) may be used to manage or slow down the process. Orthotics, or an externally applied device used to modify the structural or functional characteristics of the neuromusculoskeletal system specifically for the foot and ankle, may be used as inserts into shoes to displace regions of the foot for more balanced, comfortable or therapeutic placements of the foot. Physical therapy may also be used to alleviate symptoms, strengthening muscles such as the gastrocnemius muscle (which in turn will pull on the heel, which will then pull on the plantar fascia, thus changing the structure and shape of the foot).