Gait Coordination: Controlling Footwear and Lower Limb Dimensions in Clinical Gait Study

This three-article dissertation investigate the relation between gait coordination and footwear and lower limb dimensions. The studies in this dissertation are united by two motivations: 1) improve the rigor of clinical gait study that estimates gait coordination of patients, and 2) bridge the knowledge gap between evolutionary anthropologists and motor control scientists. The first article in this dissertation, “Walking Speed Alters Barefoot Gait Coordination and Variability,” addressed whether walking speed would interact with footwear to affect gait coordination. We examined the pattern and variability of gait coordination in barefoot and shod walking in 20 women at three speeds: SLOW (SWS), FAST (FWS), and comfortable walking speed (CWS). We found that the walking speed interacted with footwear conditions to affect the gait coordination and suggested that barefoot and shod walking used different coordination strategies to cope with increasing walking speed. The second and third articles were designed as secondary analyses of existing data collected by the Primate Evolutionary Biomechanics Lab at the University of Washington. The second article, “Pelvic Breadth, Limb Length and Proportion Associate with Gait Coordination,” examined the association between lower limb dimensions and gait coordination at CWS. We found pelvic breadth, lower limb length, and crural index were associated with thigh-shank and hip-ankle coordination. This association was also dependent on the methods to obtain gait coordination. The adjusted r2 ranged from 0.28-0.78 with an average of 0.50. Therefore, we recommend researchers take into account lower limb dimensions when designing and reporting clinical gait study. The third article, “Can Lower Limb Dimensions Modulate Motor Stress in Non-optimal Walking Speed?”, built on the second article and strived to understand the relation among lower limb dimensions, walking speeds, and gait coordination. We hypothesize that lower limb dimensions can modulate the motor stress in non-optimal walking speed (SWS and FWS). Our result partially supported this hypothesis. However, the influence of the lower limb dimensions is small and less dominant than other factors.

Author dc:creator

• Yu, Binnan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kramer, Patricia

• Kinesiology

Statement dc:rights

• none

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1773/48397

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.lib.washington.edu:1773/48397