This will generally mean that, despite the presence of a coalition, the bones can deform enough to allow painless walking until the child's skeleton has matured enough.

[5] Symptoms may start suddenly one day and persist, and can include pain or pressure while walking, lack of endurance for activity, fatigue, muscle spasms and cramps, an inability to rotate the foot, or antalgic gait.

The birth defect responsible for tarsal coalition is thought to often be an autosomal dominant genetic condition.

Anatomically, the abnormal connecting 'bridge' is virtually all cartilage in the young child, often nearly all bone in an adult and a mixture as the skeleton ossifies in between these ages.

These motions are necessary for such activities as walking over uneven terrain and creating a gait that allows normal function of the knees, hips, back, etc.

[11] The goal of non-surgical treatment of tarsal coalition is to relieve the symptoms by reducing the movement of the affected joint.

With age comes extra wear in the affected and adjacent joints that makes treatment more difficult.