Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain.
Capturing human locomotion in nearly any environment or context is becoming increasingly feasible with wearable sensors, giving access to commonly encountered walking conditions. While important in expanding our understanding of locomotor biomechanics, these more variable environments present challe...
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| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2024-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293691&type=printable |
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| author | Emma Gibson Greg Douglas Katelyn Jeffries Julianne Delaurier Taylor Chestnut Jesse M Charlton |
| author_facet | Emma Gibson Greg Douglas Katelyn Jeffries Julianne Delaurier Taylor Chestnut Jesse M Charlton |
| author_sort | Emma Gibson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Capturing human locomotion in nearly any environment or context is becoming increasingly feasible with wearable sensors, giving access to commonly encountered walking conditions. While important in expanding our understanding of locomotor biomechanics, these more variable environments present challenges to identify changes in data due to person-level factors among the varying environment-level factors. Our study examined foot-specific biomechanics while walking on terrain commonly encountered with the goal of understanding the extent to which these variables change due to terrain. We recruited healthy adults to walk at self-selected speeds on stairs, flat ground, and both shallow and steep sloped terrain. A pair of inertial measurement units were embedded in both shoes to capture foot biomechanics while walking. Foot orientation was calculated using a strapdown procedure and foot trajectory was determined by double integrating the linear acceleration. Stance time, swing time, cadence, sagittal and frontal orientations, stride length and width were extracted as discrete variables. These data were compared within-participant and across terrain conditions. The physical constraints of the stairs resulted in shorter stride lengths, less time spent in swing, toe-first foot contact, and higher variability during stair ascent specifically (p<0.05). Stride lengths increased when ascending compared to descending slopes, and the sagittal foot angle at initial contact was greatest in the steep slope descent condition (p<0.05). No differences were found between conditions for horizontal foot angle in midstance (p≥0.067). Our results show that walking on slopes creates differential changes in foot biomechanics depending on whether one is descending or ascending, and stairs require different biomechanics and gait timing than slopes or flat ground. This may be an important factor to consider when making comparisons of real-world walking bouts, as greater proportions of one terrain feature in a data set could create bias in the outcomes. Classifying terrain in unsupervised walking datasets would be helpful to avoid comparing metrics from different walking terrain scenarios. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a34de4847a224f46a795533f62d3f5ef |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-a34de4847a224f46a795533f62d3f5ef2025-01-08T05:33:33ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-01195e029369110.1371/journal.pone.0293691Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain.Emma GibsonGreg DouglasKatelyn JeffriesJulianne DelaurierTaylor ChestnutJesse M CharltonCapturing human locomotion in nearly any environment or context is becoming increasingly feasible with wearable sensors, giving access to commonly encountered walking conditions. While important in expanding our understanding of locomotor biomechanics, these more variable environments present challenges to identify changes in data due to person-level factors among the varying environment-level factors. Our study examined foot-specific biomechanics while walking on terrain commonly encountered with the goal of understanding the extent to which these variables change due to terrain. We recruited healthy adults to walk at self-selected speeds on stairs, flat ground, and both shallow and steep sloped terrain. A pair of inertial measurement units were embedded in both shoes to capture foot biomechanics while walking. Foot orientation was calculated using a strapdown procedure and foot trajectory was determined by double integrating the linear acceleration. Stance time, swing time, cadence, sagittal and frontal orientations, stride length and width were extracted as discrete variables. These data were compared within-participant and across terrain conditions. The physical constraints of the stairs resulted in shorter stride lengths, less time spent in swing, toe-first foot contact, and higher variability during stair ascent specifically (p<0.05). Stride lengths increased when ascending compared to descending slopes, and the sagittal foot angle at initial contact was greatest in the steep slope descent condition (p<0.05). No differences were found between conditions for horizontal foot angle in midstance (p≥0.067). Our results show that walking on slopes creates differential changes in foot biomechanics depending on whether one is descending or ascending, and stairs require different biomechanics and gait timing than slopes or flat ground. This may be an important factor to consider when making comparisons of real-world walking bouts, as greater proportions of one terrain feature in a data set could create bias in the outcomes. Classifying terrain in unsupervised walking datasets would be helpful to avoid comparing metrics from different walking terrain scenarios.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293691&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Emma Gibson Greg Douglas Katelyn Jeffries Julianne Delaurier Taylor Chestnut Jesse M Charlton Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. PLoS ONE |
| title | Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. |
| title_full | Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. |
| title_fullStr | Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. |
| title_short | Foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion: Effects of real-world terrain. |
| title_sort | foot orientation and trajectory variability in locomotion effects of real world terrain |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293691&type=printable |
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