Speed influences on complicated kinetic, kinematic and electromyographic gait data of lower extremities among healthy subjects

摘要

Previous studies suggested that increasing speed has an effect on human walking features such as joints and muscles range of motion, related spatio-temporal parameters and muscles activation patterns. However, such an effect on more complicated indices e.g. muscle synergies, minimum angular jerk and cross correlation between different types of biomechanical gait data has not been studied in large number of healthy subjects. We investigated the effect of walking speed changes on such criteria. Thirty-two healthy subjects (aged 6-72 y, 59% female) participated in this study. Kinetic, kinematic and electromyographic (EMG) data (muscles: tibialis anterior, soleus, gastrocnemius medialis, peroneus longus, rectus femoris, vastus medialis, biceps femoris and gluteus maximus) were recorded during over ground walking at five following walking speed categories as: very slow, slow, medium, fast and very fast. The results showed a significant correlation between investigated indices and gait speed (p <; 0.05), among which cadence (r = 0.749) and synergy coordination index (r = -0.463) had the highest and lowest correlation. It could be concluded that speed plays an important role in gait characteristics. It could change central nerves system commands, decrease walking smoothness and lower limb contributions. Consequently, most probably there is a relationship between the proposed indices and other speed dependent features like walking dynamic stability requiring long-term data recording. However, long-term gait data is needed for final assessment.