Orthapedic Injuries in Personal Injury Cases; Motion Analysis

The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has recently published an article about a study by orthopedic surgeons about motion analysis. Apparently, this is the study of the gait and walking changes of someone who has suffered an orthopedic injury to the leg. This would include the foot, ankle, lower leg (tibia or fibula), knee, upper leg (femur), the hip or the pelvis.

We have found in our practice here at Hickey Law Firm, P.A. that whenever someone injures their leg or in some other way alters the way they walk, that is their gait, this alters and affects other parts of their bodies. Most commonly, we see back problems after this. Oftentimes the back injury can become as bad or worse than the initial injury which sets off the chain reaction to make the back hurt. That is why measuring the altered gait is so important.

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References

Motion analysis is an important tool that is used to understand the complexities of movement and lower extremity function. Such a detailed description of function has been valuable for determining both nonoperative and operative management guidelines for individuals with abnormal gait patterns1-4.

Gait-evaluation protocols involving the use of instrumented treadmills are likely to be used in the near future. Riley et al. performed a kinematic and kinetic comparison of overground and treadmill walking in a study of healthy subjects and demonstrated that treadmill gait is qualitatively and quantitatively similar to overground gait and that the mechanics of treadmill and overground gait are very similar5. Having demonstrated the essential equivalence of treadmill and overground gait, the authors proposed the possibility of incorporating treadmill-based protocols into clinical movement analysis.