Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
A kinematic and kinetic comparison of overground and treadmill walking in healthy subjects.
Riley PO, Paolini G, Croce UD, Paylo KW, Kerrigan DC Gait Posture. 2006 Aug 11;
Quote:
INTRODUCTION: Gait evaluation protocols using instrumented treadmills will be increasingly used in the near future. For this reason, it must be shown that using instrumented treadmills will produce measures of the ground reaction force adequate for inverse dynamic analysis, and differences between treadmill and overground gait must be well characterized.
METHODS: Overground walking kinetics were estimated with the subjects walking at their self-selected comfortable walking speed. For the treadmill gait trials, the subjects walked on two treadmills, such that heel-strike occurred on the forward treadmill and toe-off occurred on the trailing treadmill. The treadmill was set to the average overground walking speed. Overground and treadmill data were evaluated using Vicon Plug-in Gait. The differences between the maxima and minima of kinematic and kinetic parameters for overground and treadmill gait were evaluated.
RESULTS: The kinematics of treadmill and overground gait were very similar. Twelve of 22 kinematic parameter maxima were statistically significantly different (p<0.05), but the magnitude of the difference was generally less than 2 degrees . All GRF maxima were found to be statistically significantly smaller for treadmill versus overground gait (p<0.05) as were 15 of 18 moment, and 3 of 6 power maxima. However, the magnitude of the differences was comparable to the variability in normal gait parameters. The sagittal plane ankle moments were not statistically different for treadmill and overground gait.
DISCUSSION: We have shown that treadmill gait is qualitatively and quantitatively similar to overground gait. Differences in kinematic and kinetic parameters can be detected in matched comparisons, particularly in the case of kinetic parameters. However, the magnitudes of these differences are all within the range of repeatability of measured kinematic parameters. Thus, the mechanics of treadmill and overground gait are very similar.
CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Having demonstrated the essential equivalence of treadmill and overground gait, it is now possible for clinical movement analysis to take advantage of treadmill-based protocols.
Familiarisation to treadmill walking in unimpaired older people.
Wass E, Taylor NF, Matsas A.
School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic. 3086, Australia.
We studied the amount of time required for treadmill familiarisation in older people and also whether familiarised treadmill walking could be generalised to overground walking. Sixteen healthy volunteers over 65 years of age walked on a level overground walkway and on a treadmill at the same speed for up to 15 min. A motion measurement system was used to measure the sagittal plane kinematics of the knee and cadence during overground walking and after 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 min of treadmill walking. Older adults had not familiarised to the treadmill within 15 min as many participants continued to hold the treadmill's handrails and as reliability and absolute difference scores were still changing. Participants were most familiarised after 14 min on the treadmill. Furthermore, treadmill walking after 14 min was not closely related to overground walking in older adults, with measures on the treadmill only being able to predict knee angles during overground to within 8.0 degrees, or cadence to within 16.6 steps/min with 95% confidence. Treadmill walking in older adults after a single 15-min training session could not be generalised to overground walking.
Intersting, if only for the omissions in the Abstract.
N=?
Age range?
And finally, what is (their version of) normal overground. Is it absolutely hard and flat, such as one might find in a gait lab or clinical setting?
Or does it more closely follow the approximation of hard and flat that most of us weightbear on, and ambulate over for most of the time?
Regards,
david