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

Summary

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.

Conditions

• Leg Length Inequality
• Cerebral Palsy

Interventions

OTHER

Ankle foot orthosis

Ankle foot orthoses are a common treatment method to control the foot position during walking and to prevent ankle plantar flexion contractures in cerebral palsy patients.

OTHER

Shoe insole

The heel of the shorter leg of the patient is lifted by a shoe insole. This procedure is commonly applied with leg length differences of up to 20mm.

OTHER

Modified shoe with sole lift

The heel of the shorter leg of the patient is lifted by building up the sole of the shoe (shoe sole lift). This procedure is commonly applied with leg length differences of 20mm and more.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

  collaborator OTHER

• Bern University of Applied Sciences

  collaborator OTHER

• University Children's Hospital Basel

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Reinald Brunner, MD · University Children's Hospital Basel

• Stefan Schmid, PT, PhD · Swiss Federal Institute of Technology / Bern University of Applied Sciences

• Silvio Lorenzetti, PhD, DSc · Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

• Jacqueline Romkes, PhD · University Children's Hospital Basel

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

10 Years

Max Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2013-07-31

Primary Completion

2018-07-31

Completion

2018-07-31

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations