Application of gait video-based analysis to improve walking distance in patients with intermittent claudication

• Main Authors: Andrey Yu. Aksenov, Stephen Hutchins, Tatiana A. Klishkovskaya
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Russian Ilizarov Scientific Center for Restorative Traumatology and Orthopaedics 2019-01-01
• Series: Гений oртопедии
• Subjects: motion; video capture; clinical gait analysis; intermittent claudication; orthopaedic footwear
• Online Access: http://ilizarov-journal.com/files/2019_1_12.pdf

Introduction Intermittent claudication (IC) is a condition of ischemic symptoms in the lower limbs associated with increasing pain in limbs due to physical loading (walking, running and mounting) that relieves after some rest. Dosed walking is recommended as a primary treatment to prevent possible complications in such patients. The purpose of this work was to investigate the effect of different targeted footwear features on the biomechanics of human musculoskeletal system to define optimal footwear designs for reduction of loading on calf muscles and metabolic needs aimed at increasing painless walking distance. Method The study recruited 15 healthy male volunteers aged 25.3 ± 2.73 years for the analysis of kinematics, kinetics and EMG-activity during walking in various types of footwear. Eight subjects with IC were also included. Results were recorded using 16 cameras Oqus 3 + (Qualisys), four Force Platforms AMTI (USA), and an EMG system Noraxon (USA). Data were produced and analysed using QTM, Visual3D (C-Motion), and IBM SPSS Statistics. Results This study demonstrated that to reduce the load on the calf muscles and not to change the biomechanics of the knee and femur, the most potentially effective footwear were with the length of the beginning of roll over from the heel to the metatarsal area was equal to 55% of the foot length, shoe heel height of 4.5 cm, angle of lifting toes of 20 degrees (p < 0.05). Combination of those footwear conditions resulted in increase of pain-free walking distance by 39 %. Conclusion The results showed the potential of the applied system of video analysis for designing orthopaedic footwear.