AIMS: Diabetic Foot Syndrome (DFS) is the most costly and devastating 
complication of diabetes mellitus (DM), which early effective assessment can 
reduce the severity of complications including ulceration and amputations. This 
study aimed to review dermatological and musculoskeletal assessment of diabetic 
foot.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this review article, we searched for articles 
published between March 1, 1980 and July 28, 2015 in PubMed, Science Direct, 
Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus, for both English and non-English language 
articles with the following keywords: "Diabetic foot syndrome", "Ulceration", 
"Amputation", "Foot assessment", "Skin disorders" and "Musculoskeletal 
deformities".
RESULTS: In dermatological dimension, most studies focused on elucidated changes 
in skin temperature, color, hardiness and turgor as well as common skin 
disorders such as Diabetic Dermopathy (DD), Necrobiosis Lipoidica Diabeticorum 
(NLD) and Diabetic Bullae (DB), which are common in diabetic patients and have 
high potential for leading to limb-threatening problems such as ulceration and 
infection. In musculoskeletal dimension, most studies focused on range of motion 
and muscle strength, gait patterns and as well as foot deformities especially 
Charcot osteoarthropathy (COA), which is the most destructive musculoskeletal 
complication of diabetes.
CONCLUSION: DFS as a common condition in DM patients lead to ulceration and 
lower limb amputation frequently unless a prompt and comprehensive assessment 
was taken. So that dermatological and musculoskeletal assessments are usually 
neglected in primary health care, these assessments should be done frequently to 
reduce the high risk of serious complications.