Kinematic Quantification of Gait Asymmetry in Patients with Elastic Ankle Wrap Based on Cyclograms

This article focuses on gait asymmetry evaluated using synchronized bilateral cyclograms. The bilateral hip-hip and knee-knee cyclograms has never been used before to study the gait asymmetry in patients with figure-eight elastic ankle wrap. The cyclograms were created for patients with foot drop, to quantify gait symmetry before and immediately after application of the ankle wrap. The application of method of the identification of the asymmetry based on the inclination angle of synchronized cyclograms was tested. The kinematic symmetry index was used as a comparative method. The methods based on the inclination angle and symmetry index gave different results. The reason of different results is that the symmetry index depends on discrete variables and is unable to reflect the asymmetry as it evolves over a complete gait cycle. The inclination angle of the hip-hip and knee-knee cyclogram depends on the evolutions of the hip and knee joint angles over time. Only in the case of symmetry index of hip joint angles is significant difference between the data measured before and after application of ankle wrap.