Foot pressure-based analysis of gait while using a smartphone.

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Gait Analysis

Background:

• Rising incidents linked to walking while using smartphones.
• Lack of clarity on how smartphone use impacts gait and foot pressure patterns.
• Understanding these effects may reveal mechanisms behind smartphone-related accidents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how smartphone usage affects foot pressure distribution during walking.
• To compare gait parameters under various smartphone use conditions.
• To identify differences in foot pressure patterns between individuals with and without a history of walking incidents.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study with 40 healthy young adults.
• Measured gait parameters: walking speed, step length, coefficient of variance (CV), center of pressure (COP) trajectory length (%Long), partial foot pressure (%PFP), and COP existence time (COPexT).
• Compared parameters across four conditions: normal walking, screen gazing, social networking service (SNS) use, and cognitive application use, using repeated-measures ANOVA. Analyzed differences between incident and non-incident groups.

Main Results:

• SNS and cognitive application use significantly reduced walking speed, step length, %Long, heel %PFP, and COPexT.
• Increased CV and metatarsal %PFP were observed during SNS and cognitive application use.
• %PFP in the heel and metatarsal regions showed significant interaction between group and condition.
• The incident group exhibited lower heel %PFP and higher metatarsal %PFP compared to the non-incident group.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone use, particularly for SNS and cognitive tasks, shifts foot loading towards the forefoot.
• This altered pressure distribution, characterized by increased forefoot loading, is more pronounced in individuals with a history of incidents.
• The findings suggest that changes in foot pressure patterns during smartphone use may contribute to stumbles and collisions.