Article

We hypothesize that spatiotemporal joint coupling patterns during gait are
closely associated with musculoskeletal injury mechanics. Previous studies
examining joint coupling, have primarily focused on coupling between single pairs
of neighboring body segments or joints; thus falling short of characterizing the
full spatiotemporal complexity across the entire gait apparatus. This study
proposes the reliance on properties of the temporal cross-correlation of distinct
joint variables as a means to characterize and detect differences in multiple
segmental coupling pairs and to quantify how these couplings change between
different gait conditions or test groups. In particular, for each subject, a
characteristic diagram array is obtained whose entries include the maximum values
of the cross-correlation between all pairs of joint variables as well as the
associated phase shifts at which these maxima are recorded. Paired t-tests are
then used to highlight significant differences in the corresponding entries
between two gait conditions. In the present study, this technique was applied to
angular displacement and velocity histories across 12 lower extremity joint
variables, for healthy subjects with and without a brace on the right knee. As
expected, the statistical analysis indicated that the temporal cross-correlations
associated with the right knee-angle variables differed the most between the two
gait conditions. In addition, significant differences (p<0.01) were found in the
coupling between other pairs of joint variables, establishing a characteristic
spatiotemporal signature for the changes from normative gait that result from
reduced mobility at the knee.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS