Gait Analysis in the Rehabilitation Process

Gait analysis is the systematic and quantitative instrumental assessment of the biomechanical measures of locomotion, aimed at understanding the etiology of locomotor abnormalities and at assisting clinicians in their decisional process. In this brief outline we will present the technologies used to obtain the main quantitative descriptors of gait: space-temporal (step length/ width, cadence, speed…), kinematic (articular angles, range of motion, velocity…), dynamic (ground reaction forces, joint moments), and electromyographical (timing, frequency of muscle contractions,…) parameters. The key role of data obtained from gait cycle analysis to address the clinical and rehabilitation processes will be described in some case reports.