Background

Clinicians and footwear manufacturers often advise young children to wear soft-soled footwear when they are first learning to walk. There is limited evidence as to why this advice is given, and if soft-soled shoes are as close to barefoot as thought.

Research question

What are the differences in spatiotemporal measures of gait during walking and running in three common types of children’s footwear with a soft-soled compared to barefoot in young children?

Methods

The study used a quasi-experimental design, with the condition order randomised using a Latin square sequence. Forty-seven children were recruited (2 - 4 years). Participants walked or ran the length of a GAITrite mat in a randomized order for barefoot and soft-soled sneaker, boot and sandal conditions. Linear regression analyses were used to investigate the main effect of each soft-soled footwear compared to bare feet in the different gait parameters.

Results

For walking and running trials, cadence decreased whereas step time and stride length increased in all footwear types compared to the barefoot condition. While wearing sneakers and sandals increased the stance percentage for walking and running trials, compared to barefoot, this difference was only apparent during the running trial for the boots. Likewise, although double support time increased for both the boots and sneakers in walking and running, compared to barefoot, this difference was only observed in the sandals during walking.

Significance

This research found that various types of soft-soled footwear impacted gait compared to the barefoot condition, with some differences seen between walking and running trials. These findings challenge the assumption that soft-soled footwear facilitate a similar gait to barefoot walking and running, although the clinical significance of these differences is unknown.

中文翻译：

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对比三种普通鞋类与裸脚相比，幼儿步行和跑步时空测量的比较。

背景

临床医生和鞋类制造商通常建议年幼的孩子在首次学习走路时穿软底鞋。为何提供此建议的证据有限，以及软底鞋是否像所想的那样赤脚。

研究问题

三种普通类型的软底儿童鞋与赤脚儿童相比，走路和跑步时的步态时空测量值有何不同？

方法

该研究使用了准实验设计，条件顺序使用拉丁方序列随机化。招募了47名儿童（2-4岁）。在赤脚和软底运动鞋，靴子和凉鞋情况下，参与者随机行走或跑动GAITrite垫子的长度。在不同步态参数下，使用线性回归分析来研究每种软底鞋与裸脚相比的主要效果。

结果

在步行和跑步试验中，与赤脚状况相比，所有鞋类的步频均下降，步伐和步幅增加。与赤脚相比，虽然穿着运动鞋和凉鞋提高了步行和跑步试验的站立率，但这种差异仅在靴子的跑步试验中才明显。同样，尽管与赤脚相比，步行和跑步时靴子和运动鞋的双支撑时间都增加了，但这种差异仅在步行过程中的凉鞋中观察到。

意义

这项研究发现，与赤脚状态相比，各种类型的软底鞋类都会影响步态，步行和跑步试验之间存在一些差异。这些发现挑战了这样的假设：尽管这些差异的临床意义尚不清楚，但软底鞋具有与赤脚行走和跑步相似的步态。