Journal of biomechanics
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Journal of biomechanics · Nov 2015
Effects of noxious stimulation to the back or calf muscles on gait stability.
Gait stability is the ability to deal with small perturbations that naturally occur during walking. Changes in motor control caused by pain could affect this ability. This study investigated whether nociceptive stimulation (hypertonic saline injection) in a low back (LBP) or calf (CalfP) muscle affects gait stability. ⋯ Opposite effects of LBP on gait stability between speeds suggests a more protective strategy at the faster speed. Although mediolateral RMS was greater and participants had more asymmetric stance times with CalfP than LBP and no pain, limited effect of CalfP at the faster speed could relate to greater kinematic constraints and smaller effects of calf muscle activity on propulsion at this speed. In conclusion, pain effects on gait stability depend on pain location and walking speed.
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Journal of biomechanics · Nov 2015
Quantifying foot placement variability and dynamic stability of movement to assess control mechanisms during forward and lateral running.
Research has indicated that human walking is more unstable in the secondary, rather than primary plane of progression. However, the mechanisms of controlling dynamic stability in different planes of progression during running remain unknown. ⋯ Coordinate data of passive reflective markers attached to body segments were recorded using a motion capture system. Results indicated that: (1) there is lower dynamic stability in the primary plane of progression during both forward and lateral running suggesting that, unlike walking, greater control might be required to regulate dynamic stability in the primary plane of progression during running, (2) as in walking, the control of stability in anterior-posterior and medio-lateral directions of running is dependent on the direction of progression, and (3), quantifying magnitude of variability might not be sufficient to understand control mechanisms in human movement and directly measuring dynamic stability could be an appropriate alternative.
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Motion analysis is a common clinical assessment and research tool that uses a camera system or motion sensors and force plates to collect kinematic and kinetic information of a subject performing an activity of interest. The use of force plates can be challenging and sometimes even impossible. Over the past decade, several computational methods have been developed that aim to preclude the use of force plates. ⋯ Apart from the antero-posterior forces, GRFs are well-predicted and errors fall within the error ranges from other published methods. Joint extension moments were underestimated at the ankle and hip but overestimated at the knee, attributable to the observed discrepancy in the predicted application points of the GRFs. The computationally inexpensive method evaluated in this study can reasonably well predict the GRFs for normal human gait without using prior knowledge of common gait kinetics.