Minerva

Minerva heard about a 29 year old woman who presented to an orthopaedic clinic with an injured left foot. The injury was sustained when she jumped off the ground during an interactive game on a Sony PlayStation 2 Dance Mat. She had marked bruising and swelling, and x rays showed a minimally displaced fracture of the base of the 5th metatarsal. When Sony released the Dance Mat, it was part of a strategy to get couch potatoes on to their feet. This patient is now set for four to six weeks of immobility.

Interesting ethnic differences in achieving developmental milestones during infancy are highlighted in the millennium cohort study (Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 2006;48:825-30 10.1017/S0012162206001770). Black Caribbean, black African, and Indian babies were inexplicably less likely than white babies to show delay in attaining gross motor skills. The delays in fine motor development and communication gestures that were more common among Pakistani and Bangladeshi babies were associated with socioeconomic factors and cultural traditions, and they point to the need to tackle social deprivation.

Inert pills can cause pain when patients are told they will be accompanied by …