Length of the Center of Pressure Plot: Technique for Quantifying Gait Performance

Using information about the values of the total center of pressure (CoP) and total vertical ground reaction force (GRF) during gait, quantitative parameters based on CoP trajectory length and trajectory length of 3-D plot of vertical GRF vs. CoP can be calculated and used to compare pathological prosthetic gait and normal gait. Seven patients with right transtibial amputation using passive transtibial prostheses, and ten healthy subjects participated in the study. After calculating the parameters of each patient and healthy subject, the two-sample t-test was used to assess the significance of the differences between the results of the two groups. Also, the observed parameters were compared with each other. For this purpose, Pearson correlation coefficients between the parameters were calculated to study the relationships between the parameters. The results show that in all cases, the parameters described in patients are significantly different than in healthy subjects. New parameters provide new information on way of walking and show the differences in gait step as a whole. The described techniques and calculated and statistically evaluated values of proposed parameters can be used for gait analysis in clinical practice.