Recording and analysis of gait features for evaluation of the musculoskeletal system of athletes

Aim: Development and evaluation of a new method based on theory of statistical entropy. The new method is going to permit an objective and quantitative evaluation of the gait characteristics in healthy male soccer athletes in correlation with their body features. It will also permit an objective and quantitative evaluation of the gait variability of patients with acute and isolated Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) rupture and will be useful for the evaluation of responses to surgical treatment in these subjects. Methods: Prior to gait measurement, there was a history complementation form and a clinical evaluation form to be filled. A tri-axial accelerometer sensor was used for the gait measurement and entropy algorithm was used for accelerometer data analysis. The measurement device measured the approximate gait acceleration of the centre of gravity (COG) of the subject body. All subjects were instructed to walk along a 40 m straight hospital level walkway at a self-selected walking speed. The group participated at the first study was consisted of 175 healthy soccer atheletes which participated in their athletic club obligations. There were excluded subjects with musculoskeletal and/or neurological problems. At the end 133 subjects were included in the study. Basic somatometric features as well as the level of their training were recorded. The objective of the second study was to compare the gait variability of patients with excessive anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) deficiency (experimental group) with that of healthy individuals (control group) using the proposed method. The experimental group consisted of 20 men with an ACL tear and the control group consisted of 20 healthy men without any neurological and/or musculoskeletal pathology or injury. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to assess the diagnostic value of the method. The objective of the third study was to assess the gait variability of acl deficient patients and to evaluate quantitatively its postoperative progression. The same group were measured before and after surgery. Preoperative measurements were performed 2 days before surgery. Postoperative measurements were performed 6 months after surgery. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test whether there was a significant surgery effect on entropy at 6 months postoperatively. In the case of a statistically significant finding, post hoc Bonferroni adjusted tests were needed to pinpoint differences. .................................................................................................................