Each time you take a step you create an enormous web of muscle contraction, joint action, and balance corrections taking place between your brain and your foot in nano seconds.

Gait analysis refers to the investigation of that movement. It is a technique used by clinicians, sports professionals and research scientists to describe the manner in which a person ambulate’s.

Regardless of whether you are recovering from a knee injury, living with degenerative lower back pain, or aiming to become a more economic runner, such an assessment can be truly informative.

This paper will give an insight as to what entails for a gait analysis, what a normal gait pattern is, why people choose to do it and what to expect from beginning to end.

What Is Gait Analysis? Clinical & Scientific Observation

Fundamentally, gait analysis records the way your body travels through the environment when you jog or walk and leverages that data to reveal repetitions, shortcomings or issues.

The term encompasses a broad range, from the trained observer watching you walk down a corridor, to a fully instrumented laboratory trial, with cameras and force plates.

Most people have heard some variation of it after a injury, in physical therapy, or while shopping for running shoes.

To summarize, the point, whether in a laboratory, gymnasium, or rubber room, is the same: learn how your body works and ultimately it will help you make better decisions about treatment, training, or shoes.

What are the key components of a normal gait pattern? Before trying to identify abnormalities in people’s gait, what should we expect to see?

A common stride is a complex coordinated action of the hips, knees, ankles, and feet that all function together.

Any break in the chain anywhere along the chain causes the pain or compensatory pattern to occur somewhere else in the body.

Phases of the Gait Cycle A gait cycle is the period from initial heel contact of a foot until the subsequent initial heel contact of the same foot.

There are two main parts to it: the stance phase, when the foot is on the floor (about 60%) and the swing phase, when the foot is in the air moving forwards.

And in these two phases there are also smaller sub-events: heel strike, mid-stance, toe-off, initial swing. Each such sub-event-specific muscles work accordingly.

The duration of individual phases, and the extent of temporal symmetry between the contralateral limbs, provides the basis for any appreciable gait analysis.

Main Gait Parameters Described A number of measurable values have been described which help the clinician to describe an individualiac!!(how they walk)-

Step length — the distance between the touch down of the left foot and the touch down of the right foot.

The stride length is the distance from the first foot contact to the next contact of the same foot.

Cadence- number of steps per minute. For normal walking the number of steps per minute is approximately 100 – 120.

Gait speed links to all of these, in fact gait speed is one of the strongest predictors of health status of the older adult.

A small variation in each of these numbers may be indication of fatigue, pain, neurological variations or structural imbalances.

Why Gait Analysis Is Done

Gait analysis is requested for numerous factors, and the influence really varies with age, sport/activity, and health status.

The first thing that causes pain is—in the feet, knees, hips or lower back.

However assessing can be justified on the grounds of both prevention and performance.

Medical &Rehabilitation Applications In clinics, gait analysis informs health professionals about:

Various neurological issues such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and cerebral palsy will each have particular gait characteristics which can be observed in a patient over time to assess the success of the therapy.

Some orthopedic surgeons utilize the exhaustive motion capture data pre- and post-arthroplasty to objectively quantify functional benefit.

Physiotherapists use a combination of visual and instrumented evaluation to recognize compensatory movement patterns—those slick moves we make to keep pain at bay that may cause even more trouble down the line.

Everyday and Sports Applications The use of gait analysis is increasing for the use of more practical devices such as athletes and active individuals processing the information for performance enhancement or injury management.

For example, runners can use this information to predict whether they roll inward (pronate), roll outward (supinate), or stride asymmetrically, perhaps more pronated on one side to overuse part of the body.

Local running stores sometimes have relatively basic treadmill tests available for customers to find shoes that will work for them.

With higher mileage training, tiny improvements in foot strike or hip alignment can make a long way toward lightening the burden carried by tendons, cartilage, and bones.

How Gait Analysis Is Carried Out

The nature of the assessment depends on different factors. Where you go and what you are looking to resolve will determine the type of assessment you are offered.

A simple assessment can be done very quickly just about anywhere, but the thorough assessment requires special equipment and trained personnel.

Basic clinical and in-store assessments A simple gait analysis can be as simple as an experienced observer watching you as you run or walk, at your natural tempo. This may be on a treadmill or across a corridor.

Pressure plates- these are flat sensors, plate or mat, built into the floor to measure the distribution of force through the sole of your foot.

These instruments can be come is several variants of reasonably priced, readily accessible and are very helpful for detecting in a clear asymmetries or pressure disparities.

This type of assessment is a regular occurrence in numerous podiatry clinics, physiotherapy practices and sports medicine offices.

Advanced Lab and Technological Methods High tech gait labs use three dimensional motion capture systems, which involves the placement of a reflective markers on the body for the cameras to record movement of the joints occurring in real time.

Walking on force plates. Pathways equipped with force plates allow for accurate measurement of ground reaction forces.

Electromyography (EMG) sensors can record the activation patterns of muscles at the same time.

More recently, detailed analysis of movement has been made possible in non laboratory conditions through wearable inertial sensors and smartphone based video analysis tools. These are not quite laboratory accurate, but are effective and accessible.

What Your Gait Results Can Show: The outcome of any gait analysis is it can be interpreted by what it means and what you do with that information.

Gait Defects in simple language These include: antalgic gait (trying to limping to avoid pain), Trendelenburg gait (hip dropping during swing phase which suggest weak gluteal muscles), and neurological shuffling.

S is known, as well as toe walking, excessive trunk sway and asymmetric arm swing.

Each pattern indicates particular structures or systems that require attention.

Gait Assessment-questions to ask and next steps Once you have received your result, you should ask the assessor what the key findings were, which joints and muscles are most affected and is there any further testing required.

Knowing if your pattern is structural, habitual or pain-driven determines what kind of treatment is appropriate – orthotics, strengthening, footwear modifications or manual therapy.

Playing an active role during the analysis of your results yields to much better results than waiting for a box of generic advice.