Clinical gait analysis 1973–2023: Evaluating progress to guide the future

Abstract

Clinical gait analysis has been used to inform treatment for over 50 years. Over that period there have been significant advances in motion capture technology and software development, driven in part by innovations in biomechanics. The aim of this paper is to review the current state of the art in gait analysis, mapping progress over the last five decades using the collective experience of the community of researchers and clinicians.An online survey was circulated to gait analysts to canvas opinion and responses were received from 229 people from 28 countries.Respondents identified the greatest progress in the areas of hardware, automation of processes, and software development. Despite laboratories being better equipped, many of today’s challenges would have been very familiar to those working in 1973. Better algorithms and more evidence are needed to establish a secure link between gait analysis data and clinical decision making. Biomechanical models require further refinement to overcome well known limitations. Despite innovation, clinical gait analysis remains relatively unknown in the wider healthcare field.Growth in the global Gait Analysis communities and advances in remote communication technology have created new opportunities for taking on this challenge over the next 50 years. Hopefully, future innovation will lead to clinical gait analysis becoming more accessible, more flexible to real world mobility and more able to exploit emerging advanced modelling techniques.