Abstract
Measurement of the ground reaction force has long been a part of the comprehensive analysis of gait. Force plates are used typically to record a single foot contact per plate per traverse, with the majority of laboratories having only one or two force plates. Previous work at Surrey has indicated that there may be clinical benefit to the use of a long, twin-platform gait walkway for the measurement of multiple foot contacts and the derivation therefrom of some of the temporal and spatial determinants of gait. This resulted in the development of a 2.4 m long walkway capable of measuring the vertical component of the ground reaction force was built to test the hypothesis. The outcome from clinical work with that walkway was encouraging, but showed that the walkway was not long enough always to capture a complete stride at normal and high walking speeds and that the measurement of only the vertical component of the ground reaction force limited the clinical usefulness of the acquired data. This work sought to develop a long, dual platform walkway that was capable of measuring the three orthogonal components of the ground reaction force of gait; of improving the accuracy of the derived temporal-spatial parameters of gait; and which was capable of measuring a complete stride at a range of walking speeds. It has also sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of the walkway in the measurement of various gait pathologies. A walkway 3.3 m long, with each platform 0.4 m wide, has been designed using finite element analysis techniques, and each platform is triaxially transduced. The walkway has been tested and calibrated and considered to be suitable for the measurement of the foot-ground forces and temporal-spatial parameters in gait. Software has been written which enables the capture, processing and presentation of gait data in a format suitable for routine clinical and clinical research use. The walkway has been installed at the Roehampton Rehabilitation Centre, Queen Mary’s University Hospital, London and been used for both routine clinical referrals and clinical research and an evaluation of the use of the walkway in those roles is presented. It has been found to be best suited to the measurement of adult gait which is free from a crossed-over or scissor action, e. g. amputee gait. Finally, recommendations for further work on the walkway are given.