노인군의 보행 동역학 저하가 발생하는 메커니즘 연구

Abstract

It is commonly known that the elderly show slower walking speed and walk inefficiently. However, few studies have demonstrated on the mechanism of these gait pattern changes. In this research, we examined whether the deteriorated gait dynamics of the elderly are influenced by leg stiffness. Seven young and six elderly subjects participated to the test. The subjects walked on a 12-m-long walkway at four different gait speeds. Kinetic and kinematic data were collected using force plates and motion capture cameras. To calculate the dynamic leg stiffness, we used existing damped compliant leg model. Model parameters were obtained by optimization that best fit the GRFs data. We observed that maximum leg stiffness of the elderly were significantly smaller, implying slower walking speed of the elderly might be due to the limited increase of leg stiffness. Also, correlation between single support phase duration and the oscillation period of the compliant model was smaller in the elderly group. This implies that due to aging effects, the elderly might not to take advantage of the resonance characteristic and walk less efficiently.