Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinematic variables of the upper part of the body for 8 elderly men during walking. For this study, kinematic data were collected using a six-camera (240Hz) Qualisys ProReflex system. The room coordinate system was right-handed and fixed in space, with righted orthogonal segment coordinate systems defined for the head, trunk, and pelvis. Based on a rigid body model, reflective marker triads were attached on the 3 segments. Three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates for each marker were determined at the time of recording using a nonlinear transformation(NLT) technique with ProReflex software (Qualisys, Inc.). Coordinate data were low-pass filtered using a fourth-order Butterworth with cutoff frequency of 6Hz. Three-dimensional angles of the head, trunk, and pelvis segment were determined using a Cardan method. On the basis of each segment angle, angle-angle plot used to estimated the movement coordinations between segments. The conclusions were as follows; (1) During the support phase of walking, the elderly people generally kept their, head the flexional and abductional posture. Particularly, the elderly displayed little internal/external rotation. (2) The elderly people showed extensional and external rotation postures in the trunk movement. Particularly, It showed the change from adduction into abduction at the heel contact event of the stance phase. (3) The elderly people showed almost same pelvis movement from the flexion into extension, from the abduction into adduction, and from internal rotation into external rotation at the mid stance and toe off of the stance phase.

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