Study absolves abnormal motion of causing pain

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Biomechanics April 2006

Study absolves abnormal motion of causing pain

By: Lori Rochelle Roniger

http://biomech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=185302956

There is a single dominant rearfoot motion pattern that most people

use during gait, supporting the theory that training errors and not

abnormal motion cause increased tissue stress that can lead to lower

extremity and foot pain and dysfunction, according to a study

presented at the APTA CSM by Northern Arizona University researchers.

The investigators examined the rearfoot motion of 233 subjects (75

male, 118 female) with a mean age of 27.2 years who were not

suffering from foot or lower extremity pain.

Frontal plane rearfoot motion was measured using an electromagnetic

motion analysis system while subjects walked barefoot along a raised

six-meter walkway during five trials. Data analysis was based on the

mean of the trials.

The researchers grouped similar scores together, with group two

having 210 members (90.1% of subjects), group three 19, and groups

one and four two members each, so small that they each may represent

variations of one of the larger groups. The variables of average

rearfoot angle, pronation integral, total rearfoot excursion, time to

peak rearfoot velocity, time to maximum pronation, and total rearfoot

eversion best discriminated between the groups, predicting group

membership 91.8% of the time.