Short CommunicationReproducibility of spatio-temporal and dynamic parameters in various, daily occurring, turning conditions
Introduction
Clinical gait analysis is often used to detect influences of musculoskeletal disorders or diseases on human gait [1]. In order to identify and assess gait abnormalities it is necessary to determine previously healthy people's gait characteristics. Therefore, it is mandatory to examine the reproducibility of the human gait in different testing sessions [2]. An understanding of potentially emerging differences is required to distinguish gait abnormalities from physiologic variabilities [2]. Along with straight ahead movement tasks, daily life also necessitates to cope with various turning conditions [3]. Turning or curve walking locomotion is a substantial field in gait research [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. However, previous studies focused on locomotion strategies while turning or walking a curve, such as the ankle rotation during foot placement [4], [5] or the relation between head tilt, head rotation, and trunk rotation to initiate a turn [5], [6], [7], [8]. All these studies report a higher complexity of gait during turning conditions compared to straight ahead walking. Hence, an inclusion of turning tasks into gait analysis provides the opportunity for a more comprehensive gait assessment. Because of the higher complexity of turning tasks, such an analysis could possibly reveal movement abnormalities even if straight ahead walking tasks do not show any abnormalities. So far, there is no study on the reproducibility of turning gait tasks in any setting. Therefore, we investigated the gait reproducibility during turning tasks of young, healthy subjects by assessing spatio-temporal and dynamic parameters in a test–retest-design.
Section snippets
Subjects
Eight healthy male subjects [1.85 ± 0.03 m, 79.4 ± 7.9 kg, 24.5 ± 2.2 y] participated in our study. Written informed consent was obtained after approval of the test-protocol by the Institutional Review Board. Six of eight subjects were right-handed and declared the left leg as dominant for postural and force specific tasks. Handedness was measured referring to Oldfield [9] and footedness referring to Chapman [10].
Assessment
Spatio-temporal and ground reaction force (GRF) parameters during turning gait were
Results
Analysis of the ground contact times revealed ICCs higher than r = 0.82 (p ≤ .02) for eleven of twelve tested conditions. In one condition (90 right 1st foot) a lower ICC (r = 0.64; p = .10) was found. Mean ICC of the ground contact time across all conditions is high (r = 0.90) (Table 1). The analysis of the vertical GRF revealed ICCs of r ≥ 0.78 (p ≤ .04) in ten of twelve conditions. In two conditions (180 right 2nd foot; 90 right 2nd foot) lower ICCs were found. The mean ICC of the vertical GRF was high as
Discussion
To our best knowledge, there is no study on the reproducibility of turning locomotion in different turning conditions. Hence, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of turning locomotion via specific spatio-temporal and dynamic gait parameters during different, daily occurring turns in a test–retest design. Our results showed mean ICCs for the ground contact time, the horizontal and the vertical GRF on a high level (r ≥ 0.76) over all conditions. Additionally, the turning
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation e.V. in funding the first author for PhD scholarship.
Conflict of interest statement
All authors disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence this/our work.
References (11)
- et al.
Reproducibility of the walking patterns of normal young adults: test–retest reliability of the walk ratio (step-length/step-rate)
Gait Posture
(1998) - et al.
Head motions in humans alternating between straight and curved walking path: comparison of stabilizing and anticipatory orienting mechanisms
Neurosci Lett
(2005) - et al.
The measurement of foot preference
Neuropsychologia
(1987) - et al.
Test–retest reliability of 3D kinematic variables in hip osteoarthritis patients
Osteoarthr Cartil
(2011) - et al.
Movement variability and the use of nonlinear tools: principles to guide physical therapist practice
Phys Ther
(2009)