Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Tip-toe gait
Toe walking
HP:0030051
What it means
An abnormal gait pattern characterized by the failure of the heel to contact the floor at the onset of stance during gait.
Tip-toe walking (or simply toe-walking) is common in healthy young children, and should resolve spontaneously by 3 years of age. After this age, tip-toe gait must be differentiated from habitual toe gait, congenital short tendo calcaneus, cerebral palsy, syringomyelia, spinal tumor, hematoma in a lower limb muscle, or neuromuscular diseases like muscular dystrophy, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and hereditary sensorimotor neuropathies. If the toe gait persists for 2-3 years, this gait pattern is not considered to be habitual. Therefore, the judgment of habitual toe gait should not be determined without evaluation for other diseases.
Rare diseases that can present with this46
Very common80–99%
2Common30–79%
17- Adenylosuccinate synthetase-like 1-related distal myopathy
- Alpha-sarcoglycan-related limb-girdle muscular dystrophy R3
- Autosomal dominant Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy
- Autosomal recessive Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 56
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 62
- Calpain-3-related limb-girdle muscular dystrophy R1
- Classic pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration
- Congenital muscular dystrophy without intellectual disability
- Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy
- Intellectual disability-epilepsy-extrapyramidal syndrome
- Kyphoscoliosis-lateral tongue atrophy-hereditary spastic paraplegia syndrome
- Leukoencephalopathy-palmoplantar keratoderma syndrome
- Leukoencephalopathy-spondyloepimetaphyseal dysplasia syndrome
- Metachromatic leukodystrophy, late infantile form
- Smith-Magenis syndrome
- X-linked Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy
Sometimes5–29%
26- Autosomal dominant Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2W
- Autosomal dominant Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2Y
- Autosomal dominant Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2Z
- Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 3
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 54
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 9B
- Autosomal spastic paraplegia type 58
- Becker muscular dystrophy
and 18 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Tiptoe gait · Walking on tiptoes
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.