title: Walking ability of spinal cord injury individuals: How to improve it?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Subjects with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) should use various assistive devices to stand and walk. Unfortunately they suffer from slow walking speed, high energy consumption, and too much force applied on upper limb while walking. The aim of this study was to determine the gap between the gait performance of SCI and normal subjects to conclude how the performance of SCI can be improved.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three groups of SCI walked with orthosis, SCI walked without orthosis, and normal subjects were recruited in this study. The normal subjects also walked with the same orthoses as SCI subjects. Some parameters such as ranges of motion of hip, knee and spatiotemporal gait parameters were evaluated by use of Qualysis motion analysis system. The difference between the gait parameters of three groups were evaluated by use of two sample t test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean values of hip joint range of motion of normal subjects while walking with and without orthosis were 48.3 ± 2.5 and 18.5 ± 8.8 degrees, respectively (p-value = 0.00). There was a significant difference between walking speed of normal subjects with and without orthosis. The walking speed of SCI subject with and without orthosis differed significantly.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although use of orthosis enable SCI subjects to stand and walk, but has some restrictions. As use of orthosis decreased the abilities of normal subjects it can be concluded that more attention should be done on design of orthosis and style of walking.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sport Injuries and Corrective Exercise, Faculty of Sports Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Morteza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sadeghi
authors.affiliation: Department of Sport Injuries and Corrective Exercise, Faculty of Sports Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Gholam Ali
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Ghasemi
authors.affiliation: Muscoloskeletal Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.|Rehabilitation Sciences Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Taghi
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Karimi
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D009989:Orthotic Devices; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Spinal cord injury; gait; kinematic; orthosis; style of walking