Clinical applications of gait analysis

J. Harlaar

VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In clinical practice of rehabilitation medicine, the treatment of mobility can be enhanced by the introduction of gait analysis as an assessment tool. In order to provide meaningful information to the physician, clinical gait analysis should disclose the functions of structures of the human movement system that are a potential therapy target. This will include joint kinematics, muscle-functions and joint loads. Measurement of all this these variables, would require a highly sophisticated lab, yielding maximal accuracy. Fortunately, in order to serve clinical decision making, accuracy can be limited to clinically relevant values, based on biological variability.

A system for clinical movement analysis is presented, that aims at feasibility for its infrastructure in a standard clinical setup. This includes a biplanar video registration, surface EMG recording of muscle activity and ground reaction forces under the stance leg. Integration of all this signals, is realized by a multimedia software application . This application visualizes the measured signals in a way that is meaningful to the physician and can be interpreted very easily. Moreover, the application can be shared over the internet, in order to consult colleagues. It has proven a significant contribution to current clinical practice.

However, in order to assess movements in the transversal plane, biplanar video is not suited. For these kinematics and to perform more precise measures in other planes, a combination with inertial sensors is a relevant extion within the concept of clinical gait analysis.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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