Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a restriction factor for daily activities of the elderly. The relationship between knee OA and knee adduction moment has been studied however the effect of walking speed on the relationship in the healthy elderly has not been clarified. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to investigate the relationship between walking speed and knee adduction moment especially in the elderly, (2) to verify the effect of special-made shoe on knee adduction moment. 77 subjects joined the first experiment and it was found that knee adduction moment increased with the increase of walking speed while there was no significant difference between the elderly and the young. However, the elderly showed significantly lower leg extension power than the young so it is suggested that the load on the knee adduction is relatively larger in the elderly. The special-made shoe had a hard stiffness on the lateral side of the sole and showed small knee adduction moment during walking in two subjects who had relatively large knee adduction moment out of seven subjects.
The Proceedings of Joint Symposium: Symposium on Sports Engineering, Symposium on Human Dynamics
