The comparison of foot clearance in novice and experienced independent walking using statistical parametric mapping

Price, C; Morrison, S; Nester, CJ

Abstract

Background:
The ability to clear the toe from the floor during swing has been proposed as a key requirement for the development of independent walking
(Hallemans, 2005). The nature of this clearance in infant walkers differs to that in adults and therefore the standard discrete data (e.g. local
minimum and maximum) used to describe foot trajectory may not identify differences within infancy.

Aim: to explore the clearance of the foot during swing between two time points of independent walking development (novice
walking and experienced walking) using statistical parametric mapping (SPM).

Methodology:
As part of a longitudinal study of gait development, 20 infants participated in two test sessions at walking milestones. Firstly, within 3 weeks
of taking five independent steps (age 416±54 days) then again when they could walk in a confident stable manner (78±25 days later). For
both sessions infants were instrumented with markers defining the feet, lower limbs and pelvis. Infants were encouraged to walk in a nursery
style laboratory environment while kinematic data was collected (Qualisys, Sweden; 100 Hz). Vertical foot (1st and 5th metatarsal heads and
heel) marker trajectories were tracked during this time and trajectories during swing were exported from Visual 3D (C-motion, USA). Five
swing phase trajectories and their variability (SD) were compared for novice v experienced walking utilising paired sample SPM1D t-tests in
Python (Pataky, 2016).

Citation

Price, C., Morrison, S., & Nester, C. The comparison of foot clearance in novice and experienced independent walking using statistical parametric mapping. Poster presented at International Foot & Ankle Biomechanics (I-FAB) Meeting 2021, Online

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: International Foot & Ankle Biomechanics (I-FAB) Meeting 2021
• Conference Location: Online
• End Date: Apr 14, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 17, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 17, 2022
• Publisher URL: https://www.i-fab2021.com/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference