Analyse des paramètres spatio-temporels de la marche sur un tapis roulant instrumenté à deux voies à vitesse fixe et en mode haptique chez le sujet valide

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this research study is to evaluate the ability of a split-belt treadmill, working under a haptic mode, to generate a normal gait. For this purpose, we compared three different gait conditions: overground walking in a corridor, walking on a treadmill at fixed speed and finally walking on a haptic treadmill. METHOD: 15 healthy participants took part in this study in which different gait were measured namely: (step length, stride length, cadence and walking speed.). The variability of each parameters was assessed using the coefficient of variation (CV). An MVN Biomech; XSens, Inc system with 19 inertial sensors was used to measure 3D kinematics in three gait conditions: normal walking gait along a corridor, walking on a treadmill under a fixed speed mode and walking on a treadmill in a haptic mode. As a result, data was processed and an adjustment was carried out for the participants presenting high variability using a simple data smoothing technique. This concerned eight participants for whom the coefficient of variation (CV) of the step length ranged between 10 and 25%. As a consequence, the three remaining spatio-temporal parameters were adjusted by considering the CV of the step length as a reference. RESULTS: A statistical analysis ANOVA was performed on the overall CVs and average values of the four spatio-temporal parameters. The CVs under the fixed speed mode are significantly lower than the ones measured in overground walking condition. Moreover, there was no significant difference between overground and haptic mode conditions regarding the step length and the cadence. The values of the CVs for both parameters under the three conditions were 3,0 ± 0,6 % for fixed speed, 5,0 ± 1,7 % for overground walking and 7,4± 3 % for haptic mode for the step length, and (1,5 ± 0,2 %), (2,6 ± 1,2 %) and (3,2 ± 1,0 %) for the cadence respectively. CONCLUSION: These results lead us to confirm that the behaviour of walking under a haptic mode is closer to the one observed along the corridor compared to the fixed speed mode. Further improvements need to be carried out to enhance the treadmill’s haptic operating mode such that the gait variability under this latter is closer to the one along the corridor for more participants.

Date	10 May 2019
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Rachid Aissaoui (Supervisor)