A novel economical approach to gait analysis using locally available digital tools in a tertiary care hospital setting

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Analysis of gait parameters is an essential component of diagnosing musculoskeletal/neuromuscular conditions. A standard approach to gait analysis involves sophisticated commercially available digital technologies, which are expensive and not affordable by under-resourced tertiary care hospitals. We aimed here to test the validity of a low-cost digital tool for gait analysis in a tertiary care hospital setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study used a smartphone with a 12-megapixel camera mounted on a tripod with Kinovea software (version 0.9.5, Free Software Foundation, Inc., Boston, MA, USA, distributed under a GPL v2 license) for gait analysis in our tertiary care hospital. This novel indigenous tool was validated in 502 healthy individuals by comparing standard gait parameters evaluated between younger and healthy cohorts. RESULTS: Overall, the recording and analysis process was simple, quick, and easy to use. The validity of our novel indigenous gait analysis tool was established by observation of reduced stride length, foot clearance, and knee goniometry among elderly subjects compared to the younger cohorts. Our observation of the elderly subjects showing altered gait parameters compared to the younger age group was consistent with previous studies measuring the same parameters using commercially available standard gait analysis tools. CONCLUSION: The novel indigenous approach validated in this study offers a low-cost and effective tool for routine gait analysis in any under-resourced tertiary or primary care hospital setting.

Keywords

• digital tools
• foot clearance
• gait analysis
• locomotion
• stride length