Full length articleIs child walking conditioned by gender? Surface EMG patterns in female and male children
Introduction
Differences between females and males during walking are generally acknowledged in adults. A wide literature focused on gender-related differences in temporal gait parameters. Compared with males, females showed higher mean cadences and shorter stride lengths [1], [2], [3]. Despite this, females and males tend to have the same comfortable walking speed [1], [3], [4]. Gender differences in joint kinematics and kinetics were also identified during walking task. Kerrigan et al. [5] showed that females had significantly greater hip flexion and less knee extension before initial contact. In pre-swing, females showed greater knee flexion moment and greater peak mechanical joint power absorption at the knee. Gender differences were reported also in frontal and transverse planes at hip and knee [6], [7], [8].
A smaller number of investigations on gender effect in adults during walking task were conducted by analyzing the electromyographic (EMG) signals recorded from the lower limb muscles. Chiu and Wang [9] showed that females produce significantly higher muscle activity in tibialis anterior, quantified by the normalized area under the EMG curve. Chung and Wang [10] added that the normalized area under the EMG curve in tibialis anterior depends on age and walking speed. A recent study [1] analyzed the effect of gender on surface EMG (sEMG) signals in terms of occurrence frequency, a parameter seldom considered in classic sEMG studies [11]. In adult females, it was detected an increase in percentage of gait cycles where tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius lateralis were recruited with a higher number of activations. A concomitant decrease in percentage of gait cycles where muscles were recruited with a lower number of activations were detected for females. This suggested a propensity of females for a more complex recruitment of muscles during walking, compared to males. To our knowledge, no analyses of the effect of gender on sEMG signal in school-age children have been reported in literature.
Thus, the aim of the present study has been structured in two following steps:
- 1)
the quantification of gender-related differences in myoelectric activity of gastrocnemius lateralis and tibialis anterior during walking at self-selected speed and cadence in school-age children, in terms of muscle activation patterns and occurrence frequencies of sEMG signal;
- 2)
direct gender-related comparison with young adults in terms of muscle activation patterns and occurrence frequencies of sEMG signal to get possible novel insight in maturation of gait.
To include the analysis of occurrence frequency that surfaced as a relevant parameter in adults, sEMG from numerous strides (hundreds) per subject were acquired.
Section snippets
Subjects
A retrospective study was performed, analysing gait data from 133 healthy subjects. Subjects were divided into two groups. C-group was composed of one hundred children (49 females and 51 males, 6–11 years), originally presented in Agostini et al. [12]. YA-group was composed of and 33 young adults (17 females and 16 males, 20-30 20–30 years), taken from those presented in [13] and [14]. Mean (± standard deviation) characteristics are: age 108.2 ± 16.3 months, height 133 ± 9 cm and, mass 30.6 ± 6.7 kg for
Results
In C-group, no significant differences were detected between females and males in age (107.6 ± 15.5 vs. 108.8 ± 17.3 months, p = 0.72), height (133 ± 10 vs. 134 ± 9 cm, p = 0.57), and mass (30.7 ± 7.2 vs. 30.6 ± 6.2 kg, p = 0.91). In YA-group, height (164 ± 3 vs. 180 ± 6 cm, p = 0.014) and mass (51.8 ± 3.2 vs. 72.5 ± 8.5 kg, p = 3.2·10−6) were significantly lower in females, compared with males. No significant differences were observed in age (23.5 ± 1.3 vs. 24.2 ± 2.3 years, p = 0.21). For each subject, a mean of 301 ± 110 strides was
Discussion
The present study was designed to achieve a comprehensive analysis of gender-related differences in the myoelectric activity of gastrocnemius lateralis and tibialis anterior during child walking at self-selected speed and cadence, in terms of muscle activation patterns and occurrence frequencies. Gender-related comparison with adults was also provided to get possible novel insight in maturation of gait.
In literature, studies for quantification of gender-related differences, based on
Conclusions
Present findings suggested that the acknowledged propensity of adult females for a more complex recruitment of TA and GL is not present in school-age children and likely starts developing with the approaching of adolescence. The evidence of an increased gender effect with increasing age on muscular recruitment may be useful in motivating the development of different biomechanical and electromyographic reference databases in children, adolescents, and adults. Moreover, the present sEMG data
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