title: The impact of vision on the dynamic characteristics of the gait: strategies in children with blindness.
abstract: Visually impaired persons present an atypical gait pattern characterized by slower walking speed, shorter stride length and longer time of stance. Three explanatory hypotheses have been advanced in the literature: balance deficit, lack of an anticipatory mechanisms and foot probing the ground. In the present study, we compared the three hypotheses by applying their predictions to gait analysis and posturography of blind children without neurological impairment and compared their performance with that of an age-matched control group. The gait analysis results documented that blind children presented reduced walking velocity and step length, increased step width and external rotation of the foot progression angle, reduced ground reaction force and ankle maximum angle, moment and power in late stance, increased head flexion, decreased thorax flexion and pelvis anteversion, compared with the control group. The posturographic analysis showed equal skill level between blind children and normally sighted children when they close their eyes. The results are consistent with only one of the three hypotheses: namely, they prove that blind children's gait is influenced only by the absence of visually driven anticipatory control mechanisms. Finally, rehabilitative recommendations for children with blindness are advanced in discussion.
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy. simone.gazzellini@opbg.net.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gazzellini
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Maria Luisa
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Lispi
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Castelli
authors.affiliation: Regional Centre for Blind People "S. Alessio", Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Trombetti
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Sacha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carniel
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Gessica
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vasco
authors.affiliation: Enterprise Risk Management, Medical Physics, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Napolitano
authors.affiliation: MARlab (Movement Analysis and Robotics Laboratory), Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Via Torre di Palidoro, Passoscuro-Fiumicino, 00050, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petrarca
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000843:Ankle Joint / Q000502:physiology; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012399:Rotation; D014785:Vision, Ocular
keywords: Anticipatory mechanisms; Blindness; Children; Gait; Vision