Analysis of Gait Coordination at Different Walking Speeds

A method for analysis of coordination at various walking speeds is presented. It provided a model to capture the whole dynamics of the movement and showed the kinematic synergies at various walking speeds. The model imposed a pa- rametric relationship among lower limb joint motions (hips and knees) using the least number of parameters. The trained model was fed with only 2 control parameters (cadence and stride length) at each gait cycle, and predicted the correspond- ing gait waveforms. Considering the differences between pre- dicted and actual gait waveforms, a coordination score was defined at various walking speeds, which ranged between 0 and 10. The model was applied on 8 patients with knee arthroplasty at different follow-ups as well as to 8 healthy subjects, walking at 3 different speeds. The results showed that knee replacement improved the gait coordination. The technique provides an analytical tool that is easy to use in the clinical settings.