Motor biomarkers related to walking ability in elderly patients after femoral fracture surgery

Abstract

There is high frequency of femoral fractures in elderly people and the rate of regaining walking ability is low. The rehabilitation for patients with broken femoral bone need to consider the walking pattern. We, then, assessed the walking pattern of those patients using the synergy analyzer and investigated the difference between the patient who can walk well and one who cannot. The subjects were three elderly patients who were hospitalized at Hoshigaoka medical center to undergo surgery. When they walked for 10m, we measured electromyography and kinematics. After that, we analyzed the data by using the synergy analyzer and extracted three motor biomarkers of co-activation synergies, virtual trajectory, and endpoint stiffness. As a result, we found that (1) the more one can walk independently, the more aligned each synergy vector becomes in a straight line, (2) patients who have high walking ability show wide range virtual trajectory of endpoint, and (3) those who walk steadily have stiffness ellipses that selectively elongates toward the hip joint. Based on the results, we plan to devise an intervention for walking of patients with broken femoral fracture.