Leg Length Discrepancy Effects on Range of Motion in Lower Limb During Walking

N A Azizan,A F Salleh,D A Salhani,W M R Rusli,A R Sulaiman,K S Basaruddin

doi:10.14419/ijet.v7i4.30.22323

N A Azizan, A F Salleh + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.30.22323

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Abstract

Leg length discrepancy (LLD) refers to the medical condition where both legs are noticeable unequal length that could affect the gait and posture, thus may lead to various orthopedic disorders that can have serious repercussions on the individual. In order to ameliorate the rehabilitation of individuals with LLD, it is important to understand the biomechanics of LLD in these individuals. This paper presents a study to investigate on the effect of LLD on the hip and knee joint range of motion. Sandal with insoles was used to simulate the artificial LLD. The sandal’s thickness was increased starting from 0.5 cm up to 4.0 cm with 0.5 cm increment. Eighteen healthy subject need to walk over two force plates. Visual 3D and Qualisys Track Manager (QTM) system were employed for data processing. ROM was compared using the one-way blocked analysis of variance and paired t-test. The results showed that a statistically significance difference in hip and knee ROM for long leg in frontal and sagittal direction, respectively. The ROM for hip was found significance at the minimum LLD level of 2.5 cm while for knee at 1.0 cm. No significance difference found in hip and knee ROM for short leg.

Highlights

Leg length discrepancy (LLD) is a prevalent condition and it occur in up to 70% of the population with a mean discrepancy of 0.5 cm [1], [2]
The mean of range of motion (ROM) in long leg became higher than short leg at LLD level of 2.0 cm and the long leg shows more higher at 3.5 cm
There was no significant difference effect observed for hip joint in frontal plane for short leg with LLD level F (8, 99)=1.342, p=0.232 and the correlation coefficient between LLD level and hip frontal for short leg is shows a weak correlation (r=0.28) which indicate that hip joint ROM is not increasing so much once the LLD level change

Summary

Introduction

Leg length discrepancy (LLD) is a prevalent condition and it occur in up to 70% of the population with a mean discrepancy of 0.5 cm [1], [2]. LLD known as leg length inequality (LLI) or short leg syndrome, which means either one of the legs is longer or shorter. LLD classified into three types according to the way that LLD can occurs. Our study is focusing on males only, while Resende et al, [10] studied female only They found that both legs were significance difference by LLD as there was smaller knee and hip flexion angles on the short leg and greater knee and hip flexion angles on the long leg. There are many different of biomechanical changes on body postural and joint angle range of motion (ROM) occurs [9],[13]–[15],. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of different height of LLD on hip and knee joints range of motion

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