Abstract
To investigate characteristics of walking movements in elderly people, the moments generated at the hip, knee, and ankle joints were determined for the subjects of 13 elderly women aged 80.7 ± 4.9 years and 6 younger women aged 35.8 ± 9.0 years. The subjects walked at a comfortable self-selected pace along a 6 meter walk-way, where two force plates were implanted in parallel at the midpoint. With the aid of four movie cameras, a three dimensional motion analysis was automatically processed to determine the lower limb joint moments. Compared with the younger age group, the elderly group showed significantly lower joint moments in most cases except for hip extension during the deceleration phase and knee flexion during the acceleration phase. The speeds of free walking by younger individuals were correlated significantly with the joint moments related mainly to braking action; the moments of knee flexion at heel contact, of knee extension at the onset of the single stance phase, and of ankle dorsiflexion at half way of the double stance phase. In the elderly group, the joint moments during knee extension and ankle plantarflexion at the push-off phase were significantly correlated with the speed of free walking. The stride length was significantly correlated only with the moment of ankle plantarflexion in the elderly group. These results suggest that vigorous push-off by the knee extensor and ankle plantarflexor muscles can be particularly emphasized for normal walking in elderly women.
