Abstract

The popularity of running as a form of exercise makes any health benefits or consequences a relevant topic for the public. The repetitive loads associated with running can cause discomfort, pain and lead to overuse injuries. Foot orthotics are implants in the shoe intended to help alleviate these symptoms (see Razeghi and Batt (2000) for a review). This study used a dataset collected at the University of Calgary which consists of kinematic and kinetic measures for gait in three orthotic conditions as well as a control. The purpose of this study was to complement the findings of the original analyses performed on the dataset, which were analyses of discrete variables (Mündermann, Nigg, Humble, & Stefanyshyn, 2003). The current analysis used Kohonen Self-Organizing Map (SOM) techniques to compare the multi-dimensional time-series data, used to construct the discrete variables in the original analyses, to compare differences in coordination between different types of shoe orthotics. The three types of orthotics studied were: Posted orthotics, Molded orthotics and Posted and Molded orthotics. Verf.-Referat