There continues to be much debate about the benefit of orthotics (insoles) in ameliorating common foot and ankle issues. The best way to study this is in a randomised controlled trial where a patient is either given the treatment insole or a fake insole (sham) acting as the placebo. Any improvement in symptoms in the treatment group can then be attributed to the treatment insole use.
In this recent article @EileenTomorrow @TimTheologis and myself have highlighted that most studies that use a sham insole as a placebo have not tested whether a) patients can tell the difference or not or b) whether it actually may have a treatment effect. As such we are not sure how well we can trust the results of these studies.
Ultimately we advocate a proper validation of whether a sham insole is truly a sham before the study is undertaken. This will bring us a step closer to understanding whether insoles really work!
Link to article:- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35019884/