Toe clearance and toe gripping strength in walking

- a study for fall prevention -

Abstract

Walking is influenced by aging besides it has an aspect of automatic reaction. Therefore, it has been studied that there are some factors that induce falls during walking. Toe Clearance (TC) that was regarded as the cause of falls is not always decreasing in aged individuals, but the instability of their body trunks and variability of the angles of their knees and leg joints may cause the variability of TC, and during the gait cycle when TC becomes low, it would be a possible cause of an accidental fall. As TC is created uncon sciously and passively, it would be important to enhance the reproducibility of lower leg muscles during the swing phase. For that purpose, to directly stabilize the body trunk is one way, but another alternative would be to enhance the toe function that is the base par ticularly during the midstance phase to the preswing phase. One that represents the toe functions is Toe Gripping Strength (TG), and it is speculated that TG has functions of con trolling posture, and create propulsive force. For TG, not only the toe flexor muscles, but also the flexibility of the feet and co-contractions of crural muscles, particularly the muscle activity amount of the tibialis anterior muscles are important. It would be necessary to look into the movements and functions of distal portions of the lower legs during walking,as they are important from the perspectives of fall preventions, balance functions and movement controls.