Reliability and Validity of IMU-Based Foot Progression Angle Measurement under Different Gait Retraining Strategies

Load modifying gait retraining strategies, such as changing the foot progression angle (FPA) to toe-in and toe-out gait, are used for people with medial knee osteoarthritis. The FPA can be measured using a pressure sensitive walkway (PSW), but inertial measurement units (IMUs) are considered more su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied sciences 2022-07, Vol.12 (13), p.6519
Main Authors: Urbanus, Francine C. A., Grayson, Jane, Harlaar, Jaap, Simic, Milena
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
APDM
Biomedical materials
Calibration
Clinical trials
Feet
Fingers & toes
foot progression angle
Gait
gait analysis
inertial measurement unit
Inertial platforms
Motion capture
Osteoarthritis
Reliability analysis
Sensors
Software
toe-in
toe-out
Validity
Variance analysis
Walking
Walkways
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Summary:Load modifying gait retraining strategies, such as changing the foot progression angle (FPA) to toe-in and toe-out gait, are used for people with medial knee osteoarthritis. The FPA can be measured using a pressure sensitive walkway (PSW), but inertial measurement units (IMUs) are considered more suitable for clinical use. This study evaluated the reliability and validity of an IMU system, to measure FPA under different gait retraining strategies. Twenty healthy participants walked a 10-m-long path using different gait strategies (natural (2), toe-out gait (1), toe-in gait (1)) during four 90-s trials. FPA was measured simultaneously with IMUs and a PSW, the latter considered the reference standard. There was good and excellent reliability for the IMUs and PSW FPA measurements, respectively (ICC: IMU, 0.89; PSW, 0.97). Minimal detectable change (MDC) was 4.5° for the IMUs and 2.7° for the PSW. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated a significant effect of gait type on FPA (p < 0.001), but not the measurement instrument (p = 0.875). Bland–Altman plots demonstrated the good agreement of both systems for the baseline condition, though the IMUs seemed to consistently overestimate the FPA value compared to the PSW. In conclusion, IMUs are a reliable and valid measurement system for measuring FPA under different gait retraining strategies. The differences between the systems are significant for all gait strategies, so the systems should not be used interchangeably.
ISSN:2076-3417
2076-3417
DOI:10.3390/app12136519