Abstract
Researchers and clinicians are increasingly using plantar pressure and force measurement system to evaluate foot functions. This research evaluates the quality and reliability of a Tekscan HR mat to study the plantar pressures and forces acting during walking, running, jumping, and standing of healthy subjects. The following regions of the foot were investigated: heel, mid foot, metatarsophalangeal joint, hallux, and the toes. The arches of both feet of the three healthy subjects in the gait analysis were presented which addresses the balancing issues of the body during locomotion. The results indicated that the peaks at the big toe (79.4 ± 8.5 N/cm2, p = 0.0001) were the maximum compared to forefoot (40.3 ± 3.3 N/cm2, p = 0.001), to midfoot (7.5 ± 1.3 N/cm2, p = 0.001), and to heel (27.8 ± 3.9 N/cm2, p = 0.0002) for jump activity. The running activity demonstrated similar results as jump where the maximum peak pressures were absorbed at the big toe region. The heel region during running (86.3 ± 12.6 N/cm2, p = 0.001) showed three times the pressure peak compared to the jump land (27.8 ± 3.9 N/cm2, p = 0.0002) activity. The measurement system proved to be highly capable of detecting heel strike and toe-off moments.
Highlights
In recent advances, gait analysis has become a widely used tool to provide kinematic and kinetic data required by the physical therapists and doctors for choosing suitable treatment for their patients
The contributions in the study of mechanical analysis of gait cycle were available in the 1950s that performed free-body diagrams and calculations that developed the effects of hip, knee, and ankle joints for the ground reaction forces
The only situation where this was not the case was for the heel strike of the walking, running, and jumping data
Summary
Gait analysis has become a widely used tool to provide kinematic and kinetic data required by the physical therapists and doctors for choosing suitable treatment for their patients. The majority of dynamic representations of the foot have been limited to two-dimensional models [10,11,12]. More recent models have been created that try to accurately represent the foot by separating the foot into a three-dimensional segmented model [13, 14] This approach allows the segments to more accurately depict the motions of their counterpart.
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