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Accelerated rehabilitation following hip fracture and joint replacement, including early unrestricted weight-bearing and muscle strengthening, has gained importance in hastening functional recovery and hospital discharge. The influence of walking aids on these parameters is sparsely investigated. In this case report, we document the effect of walking with crutches; an orthotic garment and strapping system, TheraTogs; and no walking aids over 3–4-week periods on walking speed, trunk sway, and muscle activity measured with electromyography (EMG). The patient was a 49-year-old female showing delayed healing following a conservatively treated avulsion fracture of the greater trochanter 12 weeks previously with a 14-year history of total hip arthroplasty. EMG analysis showed muscle activity increased with TheraTogs and decreased with crutches compared with walking with no aids. Walking speed improved at a faster rate in the TheraTogs phase than in the crutches phase and reduced in no-walking-aids phase. Mean speed (SD) for each phase was: crutches 1.11 (0.08) m/s, TheraTogs 1.35 (0.11) m/s, and no-aids 1.19 (0.14) m/s. Trunk sway increased in the crutch and no-aids phases, and became more stable in the TheraTogs phase. In this patient, function and recovery rate of all measured parameters increased more in the TheraTogs phase than the crutches or no-aids phase. This may be because muscle activity was facilitated enabling active support of recovering structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of accelerometers using force plates (i.e., ground reaction force (GRF)) during the performance of different tasks of daily physical activity in children. Thirteen children (10.1 (range 5.4–15.7) years, 3 girls) wore two accelerometers (ActiGraph GT3X+ (ACT), GENEA (GEN)) at the hip that provide raw acceleration signals at 100 Hz. Participants completed different tasks (walking, jogging, running, landings from boxes of different height, rope skipping, dancing) on a force plate. GRF was collected for one step per trial (10 trials) for ambulatory movements and for all landings (10 trials), rope skips and dance procedures. Accelerometer outputs as peak loading (g) per activity were averaged. ANOVA, correlation analyses and Bland–Altman plots were computed to determine validity of accelerometers using GRF. There was a main effect of task with increasing acceleration values in tasks with increasing locomotion speed and landing height (P < 0.001). Data from ACT and GEN correlated with GRF (r = 0.90 and 0.89, respectively) and between each other (r = 0.98), but both accelerometers consistently overestimated GRF. The new generation of accelerometer models that allow raw signal detection are reasonably accurate to measure impact loading of bone in children, although they systematically overestimate GRF. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]