Purpose:

Although some symptoms that often occur with hip joint osteoarthritis (OA) may be involved in the appearance of gait disturbance, the main cause has not been identified. We hypothesised that the abnormalities in gait trajectory of patients with hip joint OA are mainly caused by limited range of motion of the hip joint or the presence of leg-length discrepancy, or both. To investigate this hypothesis, we examined whether the abnormal gait trajectory in patients with hip joint OA can be reproduced in healthy individuals by asking them to wear a hip orthosis and shoe orthotic (insole).

Methods:

We recruited 2 groups of participants: patients with hip joint OA (OA group, 38 patients) and healthy individuals who imitated patients with OA of the hip joint by wearing a hip orthosis or shoe orthotic (10-mm or 20-mm insole) or both (simulated OA group, 6 individuals). For gait analysis, we used a portable, wearable gait analyser with inertial sensors to evaluate 3-dimensional (3D) changes in gait trajectory.

Results:

In the OA group, the patterns of gait trajectories that were drawn on the 3 planes (coronal, sagittal, and horizontal planes) could be roughly divided into 3 types. The gait trajectories that were drawn when wearing a hip orthosis in the simulated OA group were very similar to 1 of the 3 patterns of gait trajectory that occurs in the OA group.

Conclusions:

We were able to reproduce the abnormal gait trajectory that is observed in ⅓ of patients with hip OA in healthy individuals, so we propose that an extreme reduction in hip joint ROM is 1 of the causes of abnormal gait pattern in patients with OA of the hip joint. A difference in leg length of 20 mm alone has little effect on gait trajectory.

中文翻译：

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髋关节运动范围有限和腿长差异对步态轨迹的影响：重现髋关节骨关节炎患者不对称步态的实验

目的：

尽管髋关节骨关节炎（OA）经常出现的一些症状可能与步态障碍的出现有关，但主要原因尚未确定。我们假设髋关节OA患者步态轨迹异常主要是由于髋关节活动范围受限或存在下肢长度差异，或两者兼而有之。为了研究这一假设，我们通过要求健康个体佩戴髋关节矫形器和鞋矫形器（鞋垫）来检验髋关节 OA 患者的异常步态轨迹是否可以在健康个体中重现。

方法：

我们招募了 2 组参与者：髋关节 OA 患者（OA 组，38 名患者）和通过佩戴髋关节矫形器或鞋矫形器（10 毫米或 20 毫米鞋垫）或模仿髋关节 OA 患者的健康个体。两者（模拟 OA 组，6 人）。对于步态分析，我们使用带有惯性传感器的便携式可穿戴步态分析仪来评估步态轨迹的 3 维 (3D) 变化。

结果：

在OA组中，在3个平面（冠状面、矢状面和水平面）上绘制的步态轨迹模式可大致分为3种类型。模拟 OA 组佩戴髋关节矫形器时绘制的步态轨迹与 OA 组中出现的 3 种步态轨迹模式中的 1 种非常相似。

结论：

我们能够重现在健康个体中 ⅓ 的髋关节 OA 患者中观察到的异常步态轨迹，因此我们提出髋关节 ROM 的极度减少是髋关节 OA 患者步态模式异常的原因之一联合的。仅 20 毫米的腿长差异对步态轨迹影响不大。