Computer aided approach to gait analysis

Animal locomotion, and presumably human, is facultative; it can thrive under a variety of conditions that have differing time constraints. For this reason a broadly based system for information storage and processing is considered essential for the development of general models of locomotor control. A computer-aided approach to gait analysis is described for the footfall patterns of unrestrained cats during treadmill locomotion. The basic period of analysis is the stride, one complete cycle of movement by all 4 limbs. Footfall and stride length data derived from frame-by-frame film measurements are entered into a magnetic tape data base for subsequent analysis by a large scale digital computer (CDC 6400). The system may incorporate conventional statistics and also pattern recognition techniques. It should be able to cope effectively with a variety of stride variables whose numerical values may shift markedly as the animal encounters different conditions for locomotion, whether such conditions are natural (as in walking, trotting, and galloping) or experimentally produced (as by selective lesions in the nervous system).