Spine Biomechanics During Gait Following Lower Extremity Treatment in Different Patient Groups

Measuring spine dynamics is a necessity in order to better understand gait deviations throughout the whole body and to evaluate treatment effects on spinal movement during gait. However, the full body marker sets that are typically used in opto-electronic 3D gait analyses either disregard the spine entirely or regard it as a rigid structure. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to use an enhanced trunk marker set in order to evaluate the biomechanical effects of lower extremity treatments on spine dynamics in patients with different pathologies. It has been hypothesized that 1. the enhanced trunk marker set is a reliable method for the measurement of spine dynamics during gait in patients with deviations occurring secondary to leg length inequality. 2. the enhanced trunk marker set is a reliable method for the measurement of spine dynamics during gait in patients that present both primary and secondary deviations such as seen in hemiplegic and diplegic cerebral palsy. 3. treatment by means of either a shoe insole or a modified shoe with sole lift on the shorter side has an effect on spine dynamics during gait in patients with leg length inequality. 4. treatment by means of an ankle foot orthosis to control the foot position has an effect on spine dynamics during gait in patients with hemiplegic and diplegic cerebral palsy. To verify the hypotheses, instrumented gait analyses with a standard full body marker set and the enhanced trunk marker set will be carried out before and immediately after an orthotic lower extremity treatment in the respective patient group.