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[Methods of shifting body weight in patients with knee arthroses]
Introduction:
The aim of this work was to study movement control strategies in patients with knee arthritis. These strategies were expected to be different from healthy subjects because of deficiencies due to knee arthritis (i.e. pain, altered proprioception).
Method:
A kinetic and kinematic analysis was performed in a population of 10 patients with unilateral knee arthritis and in 11 age-matched control subjects, using an ELITE system and two AMTI force-plates. The different phases of a side step were studied.
Results:
The timing of the movement was different in the two populations. The postural phase was longer and the monopodal phase was shorter in knee arthritis patients when the affected leg was the supporting one than when the sound leg was supporting. Total step duration and landing-stabilization phase duration were longer in knee arthritis patients than in healthy subjects.
Conclusion:
This movement analysis method enables to determine and to quantify differences between knee arthritis patients and control subjects. Clinical examination cannot identify these differences. Movement analysis methods bring up additional information to usual clinical evaluation scales and could be used for evaluation of the results of total knee arthroplasty.