The degree of gait improvement in elderly people wearing gait-guiding shoes

Abstract

Maintaining and improving the ability to walk is important for extending a healthy life span. However, it is not easy to improve gait by strength training and gait instruction alone. As a new method to achieve gait improvement, we have developed a shoe that guides the user to achieve a correct gait by applying appropriate dorsiflexion and plantarflexion of the ankle joint torque in accordance with gait timing. An analysis of the gait of younger subjects wearing these shoes showed an increase in the sole angle to floor and peak ankle joint plantar flexion moment. The immediate and residual effects of these shoes on the gait of elderly subjects were next examined. The immediate effects included an improved sole angle to floor and clearance, while the residual effects were observed to be an increase in both the peak sole angle during swing phase and stride. This study is a new finding, showing that gait-guiding shoes can still improve gait in healthy elderly subjects. This finding provides a new guideline for gait-assist devices and is expected to be applied to efforts to extend healthy life span.