Article

Gait analysis is widely used in clinics to study walking abnormalities for
surgery planning, definition of rehabilitation protocols, and objective
evaluation of clinical outcomes. Surface electromyography allows the study of
muscle activity non-invasively and the evaluation of the timing of muscle
activation during movement. The aim of this study was to present a normative
dataset of muscle activation patterns obtained from a large number of strides in
a population of 100 healthy children aged 6-11 years. The activity of Tibialis
Anterior, Lateral head of Gastrocnemius, Vastus Medialis, Rectus Femoris and
Lateral Hamstrings on both lower limbs was analyzed during a 2.5-min walk at free
speed. More than 120 consecutive strides were analyzed for each child, resulting
in approximately 28,000 strides. Onset and offset instants were reported for each
observed muscle. The analysis of a high number of strides for each participant
allowed us to obtain the most recurrent patterns of activation during gait,
demonstrating that a subject uses a specific muscle with different activation
modalities even in the same walk. The knowledge of the various activation
patterns and of their statistics will be of help in clinical gait analysis and
will serve as reference in the design of future gait studies.
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Langue : ANGLAIS