Effect of high heel gait on hip and knee-ankle-foot rollover characteristics while walking over inclined surfaces — A pilot study

Abstract Given the massive number of individuals wearing high-heeled shoes, understanding the gait biomechanics associated with their use could provide insight into clinically preventable abnormalities. The effects of inclined surfaces on the high-heeled gait have been investigated in the present pilot study, as most walking surfaces encountered in routine life are rarely perfectly level grounded. The rollover shapes of the high-heel shod gait are calculated to obtain the desired results. An adjustable inclined walkway setup was fabricated and comprising fixed slots permitting discrete and variable angle of inclinations (≤30°). The gait trials were recorded for the heel shod walking of ten healthy female volunteers using the three-dimensional motion analysis system by varying the inclination of the fabricated walkway. From the calculated rollover shapes, the necessary radii of the hip and the knee-ankle- foot rollover shapes were obtained and a repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out to establish the existence of correlation between the angle of inclination and rollover radii. The results of the present pilot study show that for high heel-shod walking there exist variable radii of curvature for early and late stance phases and that the same may vary depending upon the inclination. The same information can be used to modify the design of high-heel shoes to improve the stability while retaining their aesthetics.