The biomechanical effect of different types of footwear on medial compartment knee loading during stair ascent and descent

Wang, S 2018, The biomechanical effect of different types of footwear on medial compartment knee loading during stair ascent and descent , MSc by research thesis, The University of Salford.

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Abstract

Introduction: Biomechanical treatments for knee OA, especially the specially designed footwear and LWIs, are commonly investigated and used during level walking. The specially designed footwear and LWIs have been suggested to potentially prevent, delay or even halt knee OA progression by reducing knee loading during level walking. However, stair walking is more challenging for individuals with knee OA because the medial knee loading is greater than that in level walking, which is usually reflected as the first complaint for early to moderate knee OA patients during stair walking. The investigation of biomechanical load-reduction footwear on medial knee loading during stair walking is limited and there is no consensus on what kind of design parameters would definitely achieve the expected biomechanical effect. The purpose of this work was to investigate the biomechanical effect of the chosen footwear during stair walking.

Method: 3D motion analysis was collected on healthy individuals who were randomised to five different footwear conditions (standard shoe, LWI inserted into standard shoe, mobility shoe, Melbourne OA shoe and variable stiffness shoe) during stair ascent and descent. Each participant performed five valid trials of stair ascent and descent for both limbs under each condition. Repeated measures ANOVA and Friedman’s ANOVA were used for statistical analysis.

Result: Sixteen participants (eight male and eight female) took part in the study. The knee loading variables of the first and second peaks of the EKAM, and KAAI were significantly reduced when using LWI, Melbourne OA shoe and mobility shoe in comparison with the standard shoe during both stair ascent and descent. However, such reductions were not identified in the variable stiffness shoe.

Conclusion: The specially designed footwear (LWI, Melbourne OA shoe and mobility shoe) demonstrated to reduce both peak medial knee loading and cumulative knee loading during stair ascent and descent compared with wearing standard shoe. However, the similarly designed variable stiffness shoe did not demonstrate the same biomechanical effects. These results support that the use of specially designed shoes might be useful as a biomechanical treatment in individuals with medial knee OA during stair ascent and descent.

Item Type:	Thesis (MSc by research)
Schools:	Schools > School of Health Sciences
Depositing User:	SIZHONG Wang
Date Deposited:	22 May 2018 07:51
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 23:39
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/46686

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