Abstract
Background: The effect of external lateral stabilization on medio-lateral gait stability has been investigated previously. However, existing lateral stabilization devices not only constrain lateral motions but also transverse and frontal pelvis rotations. This study aimed to investigate the effect of external lateral stabilization with and without constrained transverse pelvis rotation on mechanical and metabolic gait features. Methods: We undertook two experiments with 11 and 10 young adult subjects, respectively. Kinematic, kinetic and breath-by-breath oxygen consumption data were recorded during three walking conditions (normal walking (Normal), lateral stabilization with (Free) and without transverse pelvis rotation (Restricted)) and at three speeds (0.83, 1.25 and 1.66 m s -1) for each condition. In the second experiment, we reduced the weight of the frame, and allowed for longer habituation time to the stabilized conditions. Results: External lateral stabilization significantly reduced the amplitudes of the transverse and frontal pelvis rotations, in addition to medio-lateral, anterior-posterior, and vertical pelvis displacements, transverse thorax rotation, arm swing, step length and step width. The amplitudes of free vertical moment, anterior-posterior drift over a trial, and energy cost were not significantly influenced by external lateral stabilization. The removal of pelvic rotation restrictions by our experimental set-ups resulted in normal frontal pelvis rotation in Experiment 1 and significantly higher transverse pelvis rotation in Experiment 2, although transverse pelvis rotation still remained significantly less than in the Normal condition. Step length increased with the increased transverse pelvis rotation. Conclusion: Existing lateral stabilization set-ups not only constrain medio-lateral motions (i.e. medio-lateral pelvis displacement) but also constrain other movements such as transverse and frontal pelvis rotations, which leads to several other gait changes such as reduced transverse thorax rotation, and arm swing. Our new set-ups allowed for normal frontal pelvis rotation and more transverse pelvis rotation (yet less than normal). However, this did not result in more normal thorax rotation and arm swing. Hence, to provide medio-lateral support without constraining other gait variables, more elaborate set-ups are needed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 202088 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Royal Society Open Science |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 24 Mar 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Research ethics. This study had been approved by the local ethics committee of the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (VCWE-2017-154). Data accessibility. All our data and codes used to process the data for both experiments can be found at https://doi.org/ 10.5061/dryad.7pvmcvdrr [39]. Authors’ contributions. M.M. conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analysed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, approved the final draft. T.I. and H.H. conceived and designed the experiments, analysed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft. S.M.B. conceived and designed the experiments, analysed the data, contributed reagents/ materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests. Funding. S.M.B. was funded by a VIDI grant (no. 016.Vidi.178.014) from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). M.M. was also funded by a grant from Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran. Acknowledgements. We like to thank Leon Schutte and Hans de Koning for experimental help and the participants for their time.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords
- arm swing
- energy cost
- external lateral stabilization
- gait stability
- pelvis rotation
- step length
