Linking clinical measurements and kinematic gait patterns of toe-walking using fuzzy decision trees.

Full Abstract

Toe-walking is one of the most prevalent gait deviations and has been linked to many diseases. Three major ankle kinematic patterns have been identified in toe-walkers, but the relationships between the causes of toe-walking and these patterns remain unknown. This study aims to identify these relationships. Clearly, such knowledge would increase our understanding of this gait deviation, and could help clinicians plan treatment. The large quantity of data provided by gait analysis often makes interpretation a difficult task. Artificial intelligence techniques were used in this study to facilitate interpretation as well as to decrease subjective interpretation. Of the 716 limbs evaluated, 240 showed signs of toe-walking and met inclusion criteria. The ankle kinematic pattern of the evaluated limbs during gait was assigned to one of three toe-walking pattern groups to build the training data set. Toe-walker clinical measurements (range of movement, muscle spasticity and muscle strength) were coded in fuzzy modalities, and fuzzy decision trees were induced to create intelligible rules allowing toe-walkers to be assigned to one of the three groups. A stratified 10-fold cross validation situated the classification accuracy at 81%. Twelve rules depicting the causes of toe-walking were selected, discussed and characterized using kinematic, kinetic and EMG charts. This study proposes an original approach to linking the possible causes of toe-walking with gait patterns.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Armand, Stéphane (S); Watelain, Eric (E); Roux, Emmanuel (E); Mercier, Moïse (M); Lepoutre, François-Xavier (FX);

Affiliation: Laboratoire d'Automatique, de Mécanique et d'Informatique industrielles et Humaines, Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis, Le Mont Houy, 59313 Valenciennes Cedex 9, France. Stephane.Armand(-atsign-)hcuge.ch

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Gait & posture (Gait Posture), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Mar; vol 25 (issue 3) : pp 475-84

Dates: Created 2007/02/19; Completed 2007/05/03;

PMID: 16837198, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Biomechanics
Child
Decision Trees
Electromyography
Fuzzy Logic
Gait Disorders, Neurologic - classification; physiopathology
Humans
Joints - physiopathology
Muscle Contraction - physiology

Muscle Spasticity - physiopathology
Muscle Strength - physiology
Musculoskeletal Diseases - physiopathology
Range of Motion, Articular - physiology
Reproducibility of Results
Retrospective Studies
Sensitivity and Specificity
Toes
Walking - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.