Comparison of plugin and redundant marker sets to analyze gait kinematics between different populations

Gait model consists of a marker set and a segment pose estimation algorithm. Plugin marker set and inverse kinematic algorithm (IK.) are prevalent in gait analysis, especially musculoskeletal motion analysis. Adding extra markers for the plugin marker set could increase the robustness to marker misplacement, motion artifacts, and even markers occlusion. However, how the different marker sets affect the gait analysis's kinematic output is unclear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of marker sets on the kinematic output during level walking in different populations.

In all three planes, there are significant differences (P < 0.05) between marker sets in some kinematic variables at the hip, knee, and ankle. In different populations, the kinematic variables that show significant differences varied. When comparing the kinematic differences between populations using the two marker sets separately, the range of motion (ROM) of hip flexion was only found to be a significant difference using the redundant marker set, while the peak internal rotation at the knee was only found a significant difference using plugin marker set. In addition, the redundant marker set shows less intra-subject variation than the plugin marker set.

The findings in this study demonstrate the importance of marker set selection since it could change the result when comparing the kinematic differences between populations. Therefore, it is essential to increase the caution in explaining the result when using different marker sets. It is crucial to use the same marker set, and the redundant marker set might be a better choice for gait analysis.