Kinetic analysis of tandem gait on a sine-wave-shaped walkway.
Shingo Kawakami, Hiroyuki Fujisawa
PMID 31528003WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy adults showed biceps femoris and semitendinosus activity patterns linked to knee rotation direction during loaded knee rotation and sine-wave tandem gait, suggesting lower-leg rotation control may affect change-of-direction tasks.
Key findings
01During loaded knee rotation tasks, the agonist muscle showed specific activity in the direction of knee rotation.
02In loaded tandem postures, external knee rotation was associated with biceps femoris activity as vertical floor reaction force increased, while internal knee rotation was associated with semitendinosus activity.
03During sine-wave tandem gait, knee rotation angle and muscle activity showed a common temporal relation, with two patterns: agonist activity or antagonist activity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study measured only healthy young adults with normal body mass index and no walking, balance, visual, vestibular, or orthopedic disorders, so it does not show what happens in patients with knee osteoarthritis, ACL injury, or balance problems. Each experiment used only five or ten participants, and there was no comparison group or clinical outcome, so the findings are descriptive and may not apply broadly. All participants used the left foot as the pivoting foot, so the results may not apply to right-foot or mixed-leg use. The authors state that the tasks need correlation with external criteria before clinical use, and no clear external criterion is available at present.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these gait tasks diagnose or improve knee rotation problems in patients. The study measured only healthy young adults and did not validate the tasks against a clinical standard.