Gender-based age differences in hip and knee kinematics of Chinese adults during walking and running

Many studies have presented lower limb kinematics in Western countries, but few have concentrated on gender and age differences for Chinese populations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate three-dimensional hip and knee kinematics especially for elderly Chinese during walking and running, as well as to analyze age differences.

Sixty healthy volunteers, including 40 young and 20 elderly adults, were divided into two groups by gender and instructed to perform walking and running in a comfortable manner. The hip and knee kinematics were obtained with 3D Motion Capture System. Normalization was used to avoid the body size effect. Age differences were tested with independent t-test (p< 0.05).

In non-sagittal planes, the hip and knee ranges of motion of young males are larger during running, but smaller during walking than those of elderly males. Young females reveal smaller non-sagittal planes hip and knee ranges of motion than elderly females, regardless of whether they are walking or running. There are also significant age differences in the peak hip and knee angles especially in frontal plane during running. Young adults reveal greatly higher peak hip and knee adduction angles than elderly adults.

Walking speed and the hip and knee ROM for Chinese are different from Westerners. These kinematic differences can be used for reference to design better joint prostheses to meet various Chinese people's needs.