Test of two prediction methods for minimum and maximum values of gait kinematics and kinetics data over a range of speeds

• Published in: Gait & posture Vol. 73; pp. 269 - 272
• Main Authors: Fukuchi, Claudiane A., Fukuchi, Reginaldo K., Duarte, Marcos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier B.V 01-09-2019
• Subjects: Adult; Ankle Joint; Biomechanical Phenomena; Female; Gait - physiology; Gait Analysis - methods; Healthy Volunteers; Humans; Kinematics; Kinetics; Knee Joint; Male; Prediction methods; Walking Speed; Young Adult; Kinetics; Walking speed; Prediction methods; Kinematics
• ISSN: 0966-6362; 1879-2219
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2019.07.500

•Prediction methods can estimate joint kinematics and kinetics of gait data.•PEAK method adjusted directly to only the minimum and maximum values.•CYCLE method adjusted to the entire gait cycle before determine the specific values.•The two prediction methods can be used to estimate the minimum and maximum values.
Minimum and maximum values of gait kinematics and kinetics data are commonly used to quantitatively describe a walking pattern.
The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of speed on the minimum and maximum values of gait kinematics and kinetics variables and to test two prediction methods for the estimation of these minimum and maximum values at different gait speeds.
An open dataset with the data of 24 healthy adults (age: 27.6 ± 4.4 years, height: 171.1 ± 10.5 cm, body mass: 68.4 ± 12.2 kg) walking on a treadmill at eight gait speeds was employed in this study. The minimum and maximum angles and moments of the hip, knee, and ankle joints were extracted from speed-dependent prediction curves solely for the minimum and maximum values (PEAK method) and from speed-dependent prediction curves for the entire gait cycle (CYCLE method). The overall error, computed as the root-mean-square error (RMSE), for the minimum and maximum values predicted by these two methods were compared with the experimental true values.
The RMSEs for the joint angles were PEAK: 3.86 ± 1.21°, CYCLE: 3.88 ± 1.18° and for the joint moments were PEAK: 0.129 ± 0.052 Nm/kg, CYCLE: 0.131 ± 0.052 Nm/kg.
The two prediction methods tested can be used to estimate the minimum and maximum values of biomechanical gait variables at a certain speed.