Article

Many studies have attempted to better elucidate the effect of foot orthoses on
gait dynamics. To our knowledge, most previous studies exclude the first few
steps of gait and begin analysis at steady state walking.
These unanalyzed steps
of gait may contain important information about the dynamic and complex processes
required to achieve equilibrium for a given gait velocity.
The purpose of this
study was to quantify gait initiation and determine how many steps were required
to reach steady state walking under three footwear conditions: barefoot, habitual
shoes, and habitual shoes with a prefabricated foot orthoses. Fifteen healthy
subjects walked 50m at habitual speed in each condition. Wearing habitual shoes
with the prefabricated orthoses enabled subjects to reach steady state walking in
fewer steps (3.5 steps+/-2.0) compared to the barefoot condition (5.2
steps+/-3.0; p=0.02) as well as compared to the habitual shoes condition (4.7
steps+/-1.6; p=0.05). Interestingly, the subjects' dynamic medial-lateral balance
was significantly improved (22%, p<0.05) by using foot orthoses compared to other
footwear conditions. These findings suggest that foot orthoses may help
individuals reach steady state more quickly and with a better dynamic balance in
the medial-lateral direction, independent of foot type. The findings of this
pilot study may open new avenues for objectively assessing the impact of
prescription footwear on dynamic balance and spatio-temporal parameters of gait.
Further work to better assess the impact of foot orthoses on gait initiation in
patients suffering from gait and instability pathologies may be warranted.
CI - Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS