Treadmill walking helps post-THA gait

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Treadmill walking helps post-THA gait

http://biomech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180100014

By: Lori Rochelle Roniger

Postsurgical total hip arthroplasty patients achieved a more

symmetric gait following participation in an eight-week treadmill

walking program both with and without foot/ground reaction force

feedback, State University of New York at Buffalo researchers

reported.

The investigators sought to equalize limb loading in this population

since relatively high force levels in the normal limb may lead to

degenerative limb changes and knee osteoarthritis, they wrote in an

article in the October issue of Archives of Physical Medicine and

Rehabilitation.

Study subjects had undergone unilateral hip arthroplasty at least two

months earlier, had completed a rehabilitation program, and could

walk without an assistive device. The 12 subjects in the feedback

group, who had an average age of 51, and eight subjects in the

regular walking group, with an average age of 70, walked on a

treadmill for 15 minutes three times a week. Eight subjects, who

averaged 60 years of age, made up the control group.

Limb symmetry improved in both experimental groups, although the

results were strongest with the use of feedback.