Quantitative assessment of knee extensor thrust, flexed-knee gait, insufficient knee flexion during the swing phase, and medial whip in hemiplegia using three-dimensional treadmill gait analysis

ABSTRACTBackground: Most people with hemiplegia experience gait changes after a stroke. Abnormal gait patterns in stroke patients vary across subjects and this make it difficult to assess the cause of gait abnormalities. Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively evaluate abnormal gait patterns through gait analysis for stroke patients.Objective: To develop and evaluate the validity of quantitative assessments of the degree of knee extensor thrust, flexed-knee gait, insufficient knee flexion during the swing phase, and medial whip.Methods: Forty-six healthy control subjects and 112 people with hemiplegia participated. From the 112 patients, 50 patients were selected into each abnormal gait pattern (knee extensor thrust, flexed-knee gait, insufficient knee flexion during the swing phase, and medial whip) with some overlap. Participants were instructed to walk on a treadmill and were recorded using a three-dimensional motion analysis system. An index to quantify each of the four abnormal gait patterns exh...