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Comparative Study
. 2013 May 21:14:169.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2474-14-169.

Analysis of knee flexion characteristics and how they alter with the onset of knee osteoarthritis: a case control study

Ian McCarthy  1 , Diana Hodgins, Amit Mor, Avi Elbaz, Ganit Segal
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Analysis of knee flexion characteristics and how they alter with the onset of knee osteoarthritis: a case control study

Ian McCarthy et al. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. .

Abstract

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in gait profile between patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) and healthy control and to create motion characteristics that will differentiate between them.

Methods: Twenty three patients diagnosed with knee OA and 21 healthy matched controls underwent a gait test using a sensor system (gaitWALK). Gait parameters evaluated were: stride duration, knee flexion range of motion (ROM) in swing and stance. T-Test was used to evaluate significant differences between groups (P < 0.05).

Results: Patients with knee OA had significant lower knee flexion ROM (10.3° ± 4.0°) during stance than matched controls (18.0° ± 4.0°) (p < 0.001). Patients with knee OA had significant lower knee flexion ROM (54.8° ± 5.5°) during swing than matched controls (61.2° ± 6.1) (p = 0.003). Patients with knee OA also had longer stride duration (1.12 s ± 0.09 s) than matched controls (1.06 s ± 0.11 s), but this was not statistically significant (p = 0.073). Motion characteristics differentiate between a patient with knee OA and a healthy one with a sensitivity of 0.952 and a specificity of 0.783.

Conclusions: Significant differences were found in the gait profile of patients with knee OA compared to matched control and motion characteristics were identified. This test might help clinicians identify and evaluate a knee problem in a simple gait test.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Volunteer walking with the IMUs strapped to the thigh and shank.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Typical knee angle profile obtained during the test procedure. The darker shaded area shows the most typical stride during the test, which is used for subsequent analysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Examples of a typical stride for a control subject and one with bilateral osteoarthritis. The blue trace is the left knee and the green trace is the right knee.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Scatter plot of ROM knee flexion in swing (°) and ROM knee flexion in stance (°) for typical stride: controls = Group 1; OA = Group2.
Figure 5
Figure 5
ROC plots for knee flexion ROM in swing (left plot) and stance (right plot). The areas under the curves are 0.741 (swing) and 0.913 (stance).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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