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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
The Roles Of Morphology And Posture On Gait Mechanics, Russell T. Johnson
The Roles Of Morphology And Posture On Gait Mechanics, Russell T. Johnson
Doctoral Dissertations
Humans walk with an upright posture, extended limbs during stance, and a double-peaked vertical ground reaction force. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, sometimes walk bipedally but do so with a flexed, abducted hind limb. Previous researchers have studied humans walking with a crouched, chimpanzee-like gait pattern to try to infer how extinct human ancestors walked. However, it is not clear if the way humans perform this crouched posture gait would be similar to the way a species that is adapted to walk with a crouched posture would walk. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the impact of morphology …
Physical Activity And Age-Related Mechanical Risk Factors For Knee Osteoarthritis, Jocelyn F. Hafer
Physical Activity And Age-Related Mechanical Risk Factors For Knee Osteoarthritis, Jocelyn F. Hafer
Doctoral Dissertations
Knee osteoarthritis is an age-related disease which will affect nearly 50% of individuals in their lifetime. Because there are currently no treatments to substantially slow the progression of this disease, it is important to identify mechanisms to reduce the risk of osteoarthritis initiation. Osteoarthritis is a disease which is at least partially mediated by mechanical factors which may result from age-related changes in gait. The extent to which habitual physical activity can modify the impact of age on gait, knee mechanics, and thus cartilage loading is unknown. The aim of this dissertation was to examine the effects of age and …