Article

Standard gait analysis reports knee joint rotations in the three anatomical
planes without addressing their different levels of reliability. Most clinical
studies also restrict analysis to knee flexion-extension, because knee
abduction-adduction and axial rotation are small with respect to the
corresponding amount of measurement artefact. This study analyses a set of 11
motor tasks, in order to identify those that are adequately repeatable and that
can induce greater motion at the knee than walking. Ten volunteers (mean +/- SD
age: 29 +/- 9 years) each underwent three motion analysis sessions on different
days with a standard gait analysis system and protocol. In each session they
performed normal walking, walking with sidestep and crossover turns, ascent onto
and descent off a step, descent with sidestep and crossover turns, chair rise,
mild and deep squats, and lunge. Range and repeatability of motions in the three
anatomical planes were compared by ANOVA. The sidestep turns showed a range of
axial rotation significantly larger than that in walking (about 8 degrees ),
while maintaining similar levels of repeatability. Ascent, chair rise, squat, and
lunge showed greater flexion ranges than walking; among these, ascent was the
most repeatable. The results show that turning increases knee axial rotation in
young subjects significantly. Further, squats and lunges, currently of large
interest in orthopaedics and sports research, have smaller repeatability, likely
accounted for to the smaller constraints than in the traditional motor tasks.
CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS