Nowadays, for gait instability phenomenon, many researches have been carried out at home and abroad. However, the relationship between plantar pressure and gait parameters in the process of balance adjustment is still unclear. This study describes the human body adaptive balance reaction during slip events on slippery level walk by plantar pressure and gait analysis. Ten healthy male subjects walked on a level path wearing shoes with two contrastive contaminants (dry, oil). The study collected and analyzed the change rule of spatiotemporal parameters, plantar pressure parameters, vertical ground reaction force (VGRF), etc. The results showed that the human body adaptive balance reaction during slip events on slippery level walk mainly included lighter touch at the heel strikes, tighter grip at the toe offs, a lower velocity, a shorter stride length and longer support time. These changes are used to maintain or recover body balance. These results would be able to explore new ideas and provide reference value for slip injury prevention, walking rehabilitation training design, research and development of walking assistive equipments, etc.
Turning gait is very common in daily lives. However, study of turning is still limited. For researching the differences of the walking characteristics between straight gait and turning gait and between different turning strategies, and for analyzing the endopathic factor, this study selected 10 healthy young men to perform straight walking and 90° turning using two turning strategies (outside leg turning and inside leg turning). The Vicon capture system and plantar pressure capture system were used to measure gait parameters and plantar pressure parameters at the same time. The study showed that stride velocity reduced while stride time and proportion of stance time increased when turning was compared to straight walking. Inside leg turning strategy needed stronger muscle controlling and could promote turning, while outside leg turning strategy was more stable. This results will offer data for projecting gait of biped robot and provide reference value for walking rehabilitation training design and development of walking assistive equipments, etc.
The first metatarsophalangeal joint bending plays an important role in the foot movement. However, the existing researches mainly focused on the movement scope of the joint and the clinical treatments of related foot diseases. In order to investigate the effects of the first metatarsophalangeal joint bending on human walking gait stability, the present researchers recruited 6 healthy young men to perform the first metatarsophalangeal joint constraint (FM-JC) and barefoot (BF) walking tests. Data of the temporal and spatial parameters, the joint angles of lower limbs, the ground reaction forces (GRF) and utilized coefficients of friction (UCOF) were collected and analyzed. The results showed that, since hip and knee could produce compensation motions, the FMJC had no significant effects on waking gait, but the slip and fall probability increased significantly.
The purpose of this study is to determine how restricting inversion-eversion and pronation-supination motions of the ankle joint complex influences the stability of human gait. The experiment was carried out on a slippery level ground walkway. Spatiotemporal gait parameter, kinematics and kinetics data as well as utilized coefficient of friction (UCOF) were compared between two conditions, i.e. with restriction of the ankle joint complex inversion-eversion and pronation-supination motions (FIXED) and without restriction (FREE). The results showed that FIXED could lead to a significant increase in velocity and stride length and an obvious decrease in double support time. Furthermore, FIXED might affect the motion angle range of knee joint and ankle joint in the sagittal plane. In FIXED condition, UCOF was significantly increased, which could lead to an increase of slip probability and a decrease of gait stability. Hence, in the design of a walker, bipedal robot or prosthetic, the structure design which is used to achieve the ankle joint complex inversion-eversion and pronation-supination motions should be implemented.