The Effect of Knee Osteoarthritis Severity on Spatiotemporal Parameters of the Female Gait: a Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is one of the most common age re lated joint diseases. Various grades of KOA lead to change in gait pattern by different compensatory mechanisms. The aim o f current study was to determine how KOA severities w ill affect spatiotemporal parameters of gait. Methods: Forty subjects, in three groups of mild, moderate and severe KOA and a group of people without KOA were recruited in this study according to the K–L scale. The subjects walked with a self‐selected speed along the walking path to collect five successful trials. The spatiotemporal parameters of gait i.e. length, speed, cadence, stance percentage, time and stance time were analyzed Results: The ANOVA results and post hoc analysis shown stride and normalized length are the only parameters that are significantly different in healthy groups with moderate and severe OA subjects (P=0.004, P=0.001 for length and P=0.014, P=0.001 for normalized length respectively). Severe KOA was significantly different from mild KOA and control group (P<0.05) for all studied variables. In addition, time in moderate OA participants was significantly less than severe KOA patients (P=0.038). Conclusion: It seems that spatiotemporal parameters of gait are valuable parameters for distinguishing KOA severities and differentiating it from healthy joint. Among them, length may be a good parameter for identifying healthy subjects and those suffering from different OA severities. Key Words: Knee Osteoarthritis; Severity; Gait; Spatio-temporal