bookmark us

click me to order your dissertation
UK Dissertation Guarantees

Free Dissertations - Health Dissertations

(dananberg H J 1993) sagittal Plane Gait Is Commonly Analysed In Clinical ...

(Dananberg H J 1993)


Sagittal plane gait is commonly analysed in clinical practice and gives a great deal of biomechanical information relating to the walking function. It is usually achieved by any one of a number of commercial video and computer based systems. We can use as an illustrative example the recent paper by Sjodahl (C et al. 2002) which utilised this technique to examine the adaptability of unilateral mid femoral amputees to prostheic wear. The study was only small with a cohort of 9, which clearly does not lend itself to rigorous statistical analysis, but it illustrates the point that the sagittal plane gait analysis provides a reproducible analysis of the gait that can be utilised over a period of time to document progress.

The paper itself is both long and complex but, in essence, it showed that the amputees were able, over 6 month period with intensive physiotherapy, to rehabilitation-establish an almost normal gait pattern with progressively increasing symmetry in the hip joints and increased muscle recruitment on the amputation side. Despite this, the authors were able to show that the normal leg produced a great many compensatory movement patterns to allow the body to adapt to the artificial movements of the artificial limb. The authors note that it is more usual to assess the gait patterns of amputees in the frontal plane, but the observation from the sagittal plane allows for observation in differences in the propulsive efforts of the limb.
Foot Function During the Stance Phase.
The biomechanical functions of the foot during the stance phase vary between walking and running. The exemplary study on this subject by Pributt (S M 2007) points out that the stance phase takes up 60% of the cycle when walking and drops to 40% of the cycle when running. This has repercussions insofar as the time for the transmission of propulsive forces is clearly substantially less in the running mode (in the region of 0.2 seconds if running at 12 mph)

To some extent we have covered this topic in the analysis of the gait function but here we shall consider it in more detail. The stance phase can be subdivided into three sections:
The contact phase, which is defined by the initial contact of the heel with the ground and is completed when the remainder of the foot makes contact with the ground. At this time the foot is pronating at the level of the subtalar joint. The leg itself is internally rotating and the foot is both shock absorbing and at the same time is accommodating to the ground surface.

The midstance phase runs from initial full foot contact and ends as the heel becomes elevated. The body weight is passing over and being borne by the foot as the opposite leg is off the ground. The lower leg is externally rotating and supination is occurring at the subtalar joint.

Please note: The above dissertation snippet was written by a student and then submitted to us to display and help others. Thanks to all the students who have submitted their work to us.