Abstract
This study was aimed to understand the effect of age and sex on kinematic and kinetic features during walking. Gait data of 223 healthy adults aged 20 to 75 were obtained from AIST Gait Database. Principal component analysis was performed on the time-normalized joint angle and moment data of one gait cycle computed from 8 joints of whole body and pelvis-laboratory angle. Two-way (age by sex) analyses of variance were conducted on the principal component scores of principal component vectors, each of which explained more than 1% of the variance. The results showed that the 1st and 5th principal components were affected by sex, while the 3rd, 7th and 19th principal components were affected by age. The results of the post-hoc analyses revealed that 7th principal component represents the characteristic that changes uniformly with age, 3rd principal component represents the characteristic that changes from young to middle, and 19th principal component represents the characteristic that changes from middle to elderly, respectively. Furthermore, the kinematic and kinetic features associated with these principal components were reconstructed, and it was found that the anterior-posterior range of motion of the upper limb decreases and the peak values of the angles and moments of the hip and ankle joints at the 50-60% range of gait cycle decrease from young to middle, the gap between the timing of the upper and lower limb movements increases from middle to elderly.
