Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 10, 2026
Motor Dual-Tasks for Gait Analysis and Evaluation in Post-Stroke Patients
Published on: March 11, 2021
Gait patterns in hemiplegic children with Cerebral Palsy: comparison of right and left hemiplegia
Manuela Galli1, Veronica Cimolin, Chiara Rigoldi
1Bioengineering Department, Politecnico di Milano, p.zza Leonardo Da Vinci 32, via Golgi 39, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Insights
Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) show different gait patterns based on hemiplegia side. Left hemiparetic gait (LHG) in CP patients indicates more severe involvement, particularly in ankle and knee function, compared to right hemiparetic gait (RHG).
Area of Science:
- Orthopedics
- Neurology
- Biomechanical Engineering
Background:
- Cerebral Palsy (CP) affects motor function, leading to gait abnormalities.
- Hemiplegia, affecting one side of the body, presents unique challenges in gait patterns.
- Quantitative gait analysis is crucial for understanding and managing CP-related motor impairments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantitatively compare gait strategies in children with right versus left hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy (CP).
- To identify differences in spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters between right hemiparetic gait (RHG) and left hemiparetic gait (LHG) across different hemiplegia types.
- To assess the severity of gait involvement based on the side affected by hemiplegia.
Main Methods:
- Gait analysis was performed on 28 children with RHG and 23 children with LHG.
- Spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters were measured and analyzed.
- Gait patterns were classified into four distinct strategies for comparison.
Main Results:
- Velocity was a significant differentiator, with RHG exhibiting higher walking velocity than LHG.
- The ankle strategy showed more differences between RHG and LHG, with LHG displaying less physiological patterns.
- LHG demonstrated more severe involvement, particularly in distal joints like the ankle, and exhibited altered knee kinematics and hip extension limitations compared to RHG.
Conclusions:
- RHG and LHG present distinct gait patterns in children with CP.
- LHG generally indicates more severe motor involvement than RHG, progressing across hemiplegia types.
- Differences are most pronounced in distal joints, especially the ankle, highlighting the impact of hemiplegia side on gait mechanics.
Abstract:
The aims of this study are to compare quantitatively the gait strategy of the right and left hemiplegic children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) using gait analysis. The gait strategy of 28 right hemiparetic CP (RHG) and 23 left hemiparetic CP (LHG) was compared using gait analysis (spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters) and considering the hemiplegic classification based on four gait strategies. Our results demonstrated that velocity was a significant parameter to differentiate RHG and LHG: all hemiplegic types revealed in fact that RHG walked with higher velocity than LHG. The ankle strategy displayed an increased number of differences between RHG and LHG from hemiplegia of Type I to Type III. In all the comparison, the LHG showed the less physiological gait pattern. As for knee kinematics, differences between right and left hemiplegic gait pattern were evidenced only in children with hemiplegia Type II: the LHG walked with a more flexed knee at initial contact, marked hyperextension in midstance and reduced knee flexion ability in the swing phase. The hip strategy was quite normal in both groups in hemiplegia Type I. In the other two types, LHG showed a limited extension ability in midstance in comparison to RHG. In conclusion, our data revealed that RHG and LHG were in general characterised by different gait patterns, evidencing a general a progression of involvement in the different types of hemiplegia; in particular in all the hemiplegic types the LHG patients revealed a more severe involvement than the RHG individuals and the differences were more evident at the distal joints, especially at the ankle joint.
