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Updated: Dec 17, 2025
Clinical-oriented Three-dimensional Gait Analysis Method for Evaluating Gait Disorder
Published on: March 4, 2018
Gait analysis of patients with piriformis muscle syndrome compared to healthy controls
Ebrahimi Takamjani Ismail1, Tabatabaiee Abbas1, Sarrafzadeh Javad1
1Rehabilitation Research Center, Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Background:
Piriformis muscle syndrome (PMS) is a condition that can causes local buttock pain and tenderness. The symptoms of PMS are related to the hip joint position and may affect repetitive daily tasks such as walking.
Objectives:
What is the difference between the gait characteristics of patients with PMS and those of matched-healthy controls?
Design:
Observational study.
Methods:
Thirty patients with PMS and 30 age-, sex-, and height-matched healthy participants underwent three-dimensional walking analysis.
Results:
The results showed no significant differences in the spatiotemporal characteristics of gait between the groups (p > 0.1). The PMS group flexed the hip joint significantly more (-7.2 [-11.9 to -2.2], p = 0.003) and extended the hip joint to a lesser degree (-2.48 [-4.91 to -0.5], p = 0.04) than the control group. Patients with PMS needed a statistically significantly longer time to reach the peak angles of hip internal (1.3 [1 to 1.9], p = 0.003) and external (5.5 [0.9 to 10.1], p = 0.01) rotations during the gait cycle. Further, the results showed that the sagittal range of motion of the knee joint was significantly lesser in patients with PMS than in controls (3.45 [0.4 to 6.4], p = 0.02).
Conclusions:
Patients with PMS seem to have different kinematic changes during level walking. Changing the peak flexion and extension of the hip joint is considered a strategy to enable pain-free gait in patients with PMS. Further, the knee kinematics are modified consequent to the change of hip joint kinematics.
