Checking whether the feet can still feel injury goes by several names, and they are not identical. This article keeps three apart: screening, monofilament testing and a clinical examination for protective sensation.
Three terms that get merged
PubMed Central (NIH) carries a paper titled Clinical Examination for the Detection of Protective Sensation in the Feet of Diabetic Patients. Its title speaks of a clinical examination for protective sensation, while its recommendation speaks of screening by monofilament testing. Those are three different phrases for related things, and a careful reader keeps them apart.
Lined up point by point
The recommendation in that paper is specific: "We recommend screening of all diabetic patients by monofilament testing of the feet and eliciting a history of foot ulcers and amputation." Read slowly, it contains two actions. One is a test applied to the feet. The other is a question asked about the past, namely a history of ulcers and amputation. The test checks the foot as it is now, and the history records what has already happened.
The wider guidance sits in Retinopathy, Neuropathy, and Foot Care: Standards of Care in Diabetes—2025, where foot care is grouped with neuropathy.
The word that gets blurred
"Testing" is the loose word. A page that says feet were tested without naming the method has not said what was done. Monofilament testing is a named method, and the sentence above ties it to a named group, diabetic patients, so the blur lives in the missing name.
Who each option is documented for
The recommendation above is written for diabetic patients. MedlinePlus on diabetic neuropathy and the NIDDK page on diabetic neuropathies are likewise about the diabetic form. A reader who does not have diabetes should not assume the same recommendation was written for them.
The question that decides
Ask which of the three terms a source is actually using, and whom it was written for. The paper above answers both with monofilament testing and diabetic patients. A source that leaves out the method and the group has not yet said what kind of check it means.