Upper body and ankle strategies compensate for reduced lateral stability at very slow walking speeds.

Abstract

At the typical walking speeds of healthy humans, step placement seems to be the primary strategy to maintain gait stability, with ankle torques and upper body momentum providing additional compensation. The average walking speeds of populations with an increased risk of falling, however, are much slower and may require differing control strategies. The purpose of this study was to analyse mediolateral gait stability and the contributions of the different control strategies at very slow walking speeds. We analysed an open dataset including kinematics and kinetics from eight healthy subjects walking at speeds from 0.1 to 0.6 m s-1 as well as a self-selected speed. As gait speed slowed, we found that the margin of stability (MoS) decreased linearly. Increased lateral excursions of the extrapolated centre of mass, caused by increased lateral excursions of the trunk, were not compensated for by an equivalent increase in the lateral centre of pressure, leading to decreased MoS. Additionally, both the ankle eversion torque and hip abduction torque at the minimum MoS event increased at the same rate as gait speed slowed. These results suggest that the contributions of both the ankle and the upper body to stability are more crucial than stepping at slow speeds, which have important implications for populations with slow gait and limited motor function.