Lower extremity joint kinematics in individuals with and without bilateral knee osteoarthritis during normal and narrow-base walking: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a prevalent musculoskeletal disease affecting joint mechanics. Considering the effect of step-width changes on the biomechanics of gait, especially the alteration of stability dynamics during narrow-base gait, this study investi-gated the kinematic parameters of the lower extremities during both normal and narrow-base walking in individuals with and without KOA. Methods: A cross-sectional study with 20 individuals with bilateral KOA and 20 controls was conducted. Participants walked on a treadmill at a preferred speed across normal and narrow paths. Joint angles and angular velocities in the sagittal and frontal planes were recorded, and mixed ANOVA was used to analyze group condition effects. Results: Significant main effects of walking condition were observed for hip (p = 0.001) and ankle angles (p = 0.002) in the frontal plane, and knee (p = 0.004) and ankle angular veloc-ities (p = 0.002) in the sagittal plane. Moreover, there were significant main effects of group on the hip (p = 0.01) and knee angles (p = 0.04) in the sagittal plane. KOA group showed higher peak hip adduction (p