Abstract

High-heeled shoes cause postural changes, a loss in foot function, and increased shock loadings during gait, which must be compensated by accommodations in the kinematics of body segments proxial to the feet. The feet. The hypothesis tested in this study was that there are differences in the three-dimensional kinematics of the tibia, knee, hip, pelvis, trunk, and upper trunk between low-heeled and high-heeled gait. Gait analysis of 14 subjects showed that during high-heeled gait subjects walked more slowly, had shorter stride lengths, and had higher stance time percentages. Kinematically, high-heeled gait compared to low-heeled gait, was characterized by significantly increased knee flexion at heelstrike (5.4 vs 2.1 degrees) and during stance pahse (22.6 vs 19.2 deg.). During swing phase, high-heeled gait, compared to low-heeled gait, resulted in significantly lower knee flexion (66.1 vs 72.1 deg) and hip flexion (33.5 vs 34.8 deg). The range of motion of the pelvis in the sagittal plane was slightly lower in high-heeled gait than in low-heeled gait (7.0 vs 7.9 deg). No significant differences between low-heeled and high-heeled gait were found in the motions of the pelvis and trunk in the frontal and transverse planes. Statistical tests of intrasubject variability of angles of gait showed that five repeated trials were adequate for analysis of the tibia and knee in all planes of motion and for the hip ion frontal and transverse planes. However, more trials are required to obtain significant results in more proximal segments. V.-R.