The effect of thoracic lateral deviation on gait parameters in blindfolded gait.

Only healthy young men took part, mostly students around 25 years old, and none had a gait problem. Nothing here tells you how an older patient or someone with a neurological or orthopaedic condition would behave. The groups were small (13 and 9), and the one man whose thorax deviated to the right was left out altogether, so there is no information about rightward posture. Power was not adequate for the pelvic rotation comparison in the excessive left group, so a real change there could have been missed even though the paper reports a significant result. Standing posture was measured with the men's eyes open, but gait was measured with and without vision, so the thoracic position recorded at rest may not match the position during either walking condition. Walking to a metronome may have made the gait less natural than usual walking, which could affect the measurements. The study is cross-sectional. It can show that leftward thoracic deviation goes together with leftward drift when vision is removed, but it cannot show that the posture causes the drift. The authors did not measure sensory function at all and state that the underlying mechanism remains unclear.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. No funding source is stated anywhere in the text.

Do not read this as evidence that correcting a patient's thoracic posture will straighten their walking. The study tested 23 healthy young men who had no walking problem and gave no treatment, and it cannot show that the posture caused the drift.