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research article

Mechanics of very slow human walking

Wu, Amy R.
•
Simpson, Cole S.
•
van Asseldonk, Edwin H. F.
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December 2, 2019
Scientific Reports

Human walking speeds can be influenced by multiple factors, from energetic considerations to the time to reach a destination. Neurological deficits or lower-limb injuries can lead to slower walking speeds, and the recovery of able-bodied gait speed and behavior from impaired gait is considered an important rehabilitation goal. Because gait studies are typically performed at faster speeds, little normative data exists for very slow speeds (less than 0.6 ms(-1)). The purpose of our study was to investigate healthy gait mechanics at extremely slow walking speeds. We recorded kinematic and kinetic data from eight adult subjects walking at four slow speeds from 0.1 ms(-1) to 0.6 ms(-1) and at their self-selected speed. We found that known relations for spatiotemporal and work measures are still valid at very slow speeds. Trends derived from slow speeds largely provided reasonable estimates of gait measures at self-selected speeds. Our study helps enable valuable comparisons between able-bodied and impaired gait, including which pathological behaviors can be attributed to slow speeds and which to gait deficits. We also provide a slow walking dataset, which may serve as normative data for clinical evaluations and gait rehabilitative devices.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-54271-2
Web of Science ID

WOS:000500552400001

Author(s)
Wu, Amy R.
Simpson, Cole S.
van Asseldonk, Edwin H. F.
van der Kooij, Herman
Ijspeert, Auke J.  
Date Issued

2019-12-02

Publisher

Springer Nature

Published in
Scientific Reports
Volume

9

Article Number

18079

Subjects

Multidisciplinary Sciences

•

Science & Technology - Other Topics

•

local dynamic stability

•

of-mass velocity

•

muscle-activity

•

gait speed

•

work

•

variability

•

transitions

•

children

•

balance

•

length

Note

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

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Available on Infoscience
December 13, 2019
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/163998
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