Temporal gait analysis of children aged 9-10 years

Human gait is a procedure of learning and maturation; the steady, normal, adult gait pattern is considered to be established after the age of 11 years. This study presents the results accumulated for a group of 20 able-bodied children (10 male) aged 9-10 (mean age 9.5, SD=0.5), who were tested with a portable system using telemetry for temporal factors. These results can serve as reference for the assessment of possible orthopedic disorders in children with similar ages. For the parameter of single support, a systematic difference between the two legs was found for runs with normal speed, which opposes to the symmetric gait pattern of a mature able-bodied population; this difference seemed to disappear in fast gait. However, for the double support, insignificant differences between the two legs were observed in both normal and fast gaits, which opposes to other findings for a similar group of children. Last, the single step duration was significantly different between the two feet only in normal gait.