Mechanical energy assessment of adult with Down syndrome during walking with obstacle avoidance

The aim of this study is analyzing the differences between plane walking and stepping over an obstacle for two groups of healthy people and people with Down syndrome and then, evaluating the movement efficiency between the groups by comprising of their mechanical energy exchanges. 39 adults including two groups of 21 people with Down syndrome (age: 21.6 ± 7 years) and 18 healthy people (age: 25.1 ± 2.4 years) participated in this research. The test has been done in two conditions, first in plane walking and second in walking with an obstacle (10% of the subject's height). The gait data were acquired using quantitative movement analysis, composed of an optoelectronic system (Elite2002, BTS) with eight infrared cameras. Mechanical energy exchanges are computed by dedicated software and finally the data including spatiotemporal parameters, mechanical energy parameters and energy recovery of gait cycle are analyzed by statistical software to find significant differences. Regards to spatiotemporal parameters velocity and step length are lower in people with Down syndrome. Mechanical energy parameters particularly energy recovery does not change from healthy people to people with Down syndrome. However, there are some differences in inter-group through plane walking to obstacle avoidance and it means people with Down syndrome probably use their residual abilities in the most efficient way to achieve the main goal of an efficient energy recovery.