It’s easy to take your feet for granted — you’ve been walking on them your entire life.
But underlying or untreated medical problems with them could be affecting other parts of your body and putting you at risk for other medical conditions, said Kate Clayton-Jones, a certified foot care nurse and the owner of FootCare By Nurses, LLC, a new foot care nurse staffing agency on French King Highway in Greenfield.
The new business offers a full-spectrum of foot care health services to local residents, especially seniors, and opened officially yesterday, Clayton-Jones said.
While working in nursing homes as a nurse’s aide as she pursued a nursing degree, Clayton-Jones noticed that there seemed to be a lack of attention being paid to the foot health of the residents.
“They had their nails trimmed, but there’s a lot more to foot health like skin care, massage, making sure shoes and socks fit properly,” she said. “It all seemed to be being bypassed.”
When she graduated from nursing school, she sought out a professional foot care nurse to train her further on that aspect of health care and expand access to it. She went on to become nationally certified as a certified foot care nurse.
Soon after, Clayton-Jones said she convinced the foot care nurse who trained her and another foot care nurse to become certified and form “a loose collaborative with a high standard of practice,” which became FootCare By Nurses.
But when one of them unexpectedly died, it left a hole in the communities that she had served, which Clayton-Jones attempted to fill.
“Unfortunately I didn’t calculate how much work that was going to be for me,” she said. That’s when she decided to turn the collaborative into a staffing agency business with the help of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation and Valley Venture Mentors — a Springfield-based entrepreneurial training program. But she soon realized she’d need more help.
Now, the agency has eight employees, including an operations director and other nurses.
Clayton-Jones said her nurses, through the clinic and individual settings of their work, are able to spend more time with each client than is typically allowed for in a doctor’s office. That enables them to have conversations about other issues they may be having with their health.
“They’re saying ‘Who are you as a person, and how can we support you in your health?’” she said.
Much of their work focuses on senior centers and councils on aging. Now, it’ll be offered out of their office and individually at home. The agency’s nurses will take care of common foot problems like corns, calluses, fungal infections and nail problems, and they’ll educate clients on proper footwear, socks, skin care products and other aspects of foot health.
Clayton-Jones said foot health is an important thing to keep up with, since problems with the feet can compound or create other health problems throughout the body.
“If you’re not ambulating, if you can’t walk, you’re already at risk for other compromised health conditions,” she said. Failure to take care of one’s feet, she said, markedly increases the risk of falling down — one of the top risk factor for injury among seniors.
Diabetic neuropathy is also connected to proper foot care, she said.
But with the help of her corps of nurses and a new home base, she hopes to treat those ailments, one pair of feet at a time.
“I can’t tell you how many people have stood up from our chairs and said ‘I feel like dancing, I haven’t felt like dancing in over 30 years!’” she said.
You can reach Tom Relihan at: 413-772-0261 ext 264, or trelihan@recorder.com. On Twitter, follow @RecorderTom