Comparison of Ground Reaction Forces between Overground and Treadmill Walking

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  • トレッドミル歩行と平地歩行における床反力の比較

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Treadmill walking is often used and draws attention as a method to evaluate and exercise patients with hemiplegia and those with spinal cord injury, as it does not take up much space and enables continuous walking. The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in kinetic factors, especially ground reaction force, between treadmill and overground walkings in order to examine the viability of treadmill walk before employing it in a clinical setting. Subjects were 28 healthy adults. They were asked to walk both on the treadmill and on the overground at three subjectively different speeds; slow, comfortable and fast. We measured ground reaction force; vertical component of force, force and after component of force, and lateral component of force, at each of the speeds of the both walkings. Both the treadmill and overground walkings presented similar ground reaction force wave forms in all of the three components of force with r = 0.76 to 0.95. Concerning the comparison among peak values of the ground reaction force, the third peak value of the vertical component of force and the first peak value of the force and after component of force of the treadmill walking were significantly lower than those of the overground walking at any of the three different speeds (p<0.01). The results of the study show that while treadmill and overground walkings are two different kinds of walkings, both walkings presented similar wave forms of ground reaction force as a whole. Treadmill walking, with preliminary exercise and walk speed adjustment as a prerequisite, and taking environmental factors into consideration, could be used as a useful alternative to overground walking.

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