Abstract
Frequently, patients who suffer injuries in some lower member require forearm crutches in order to partially unload weight-bearing. These lesions cause pain in lower limb unloading and their progression should be controlled objectively to avoid significant errors in accuracy and, consequently, complications and after effects in lesions. The design of a new and feasible tool that allows us to control and improve the accuracy of loads exerted on crutches during aided gait is necessary, so as to unburden the lower limbs. In this paper, we describe such a system based on a force sensor, which we have named the GCH System 2.0. Furthermore, we determine the validity and reliability of measurements obtained using this tool via a comparison with the validated AMTI (Advanced Mechanical Technology, Inc., Watertown, MA, USA) OR6-7-2000 Platform. An intra-class correlation coefficient demonstrated excellent agreement between the AMTI Platform and the GCH System. A regression line to determine the predictive ability of the GCH system towards the AMTI Platform was found, which obtained a precision of 99.3%. A detailed statistical analysis is presented for all the measurements and also segregated for several requested loads on the crutches (10%, 25% and 50% of body weight). Our results show that our system, designed for assessing loads exerted by patients on forearm crutches during assisted gait, provides valid and reliable measurements of loads.
Highlights
Gait training is one of the most prominent processes in the physiotherapy area, as gait is one of the main functions of human beings [1,2,3]
Our results show that our system, designed for assessing loads exerted by patients on forearm crutches during assisted gait, provides valid and reliable measurements of loads
The research presented is a concordance study on the equivalence between the values obtained for the same variable, under the same conditions and synchronously by two different measurement procedures [25,26]: the force measurement system applied to a crutch, GCH System 2.0, and the already validated AMTI OR6-7-2000 force platform
Summary
Gait training is one of the most prominent processes in the physiotherapy area, as gait is one of the main functions of human beings [1,2,3]. Recovery of musculoskeletal injuries to an affected lower member involves gait training using forearm crutches for partial unloading thereof [2,3,4] In this sense, the current trend is to load the maximum amount of weight depending on the lesion and its evolution on the lower limb. The current trend is to load the maximum amount of weight depending on the lesion and its evolution on the lower limb Authors such as Xu et al [5] assert that lower limb unloading damages segmental circulation and decreases muscle tone, which reduces the osteoblastic action and increases osteoclastic action. An excessive load on the injured lower member can lead to compressions or undue stress of structures on the patient even without regeneration or in the process of recovery, causing relapses and sequelae of their original injury [9]
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