Matching walking speed of controls affects identification of gait deviations in patients with a total knee replacement

摘要

Background: The assessment of functional recovery of patients after a total knee replacement includes the quantification of gait deviations. Comparisons to comfortable gait of healthy controls may incorrectly suggest biomechanical gait deviations, since the usually lower walking speed of patients already causes biomechanical differences. Moreover, taking peak values as parameter might not be sensitive to actual differences. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of matching walking speed and full-waveform versus discrete analyses.