Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Foot Contact Dynamics And Fall Risk Among Children Diagnosed With Idiopathic Toe Walking, Rahul Soangra, Michael Shiraishi, Richard Beuttler, Michelle Gwerder, Louanne Boyd, Venkateswaran Muthukumar, Mohamed Trabia, Afshin Aminian, Marybeth Grant-Beuttler

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Children that are diagnosed with Idiopathic Toe walking (cITW) are characterized by persistent toe-to-toe contacts. The objective of this study was to explore whether typical foot contact dynamics during walking predisposes cITW to a higher risk of falling. Twenty cITW and agematched controls performed typical and toe walking trials. The gait parameters related to foot contact dynamics, vertical force impulses during stance, slip, and trip risk were compared for both groups. We found that cITW manifest less stable gait and produced significantly higher force impulses during push-off. Additionally, we found that cITW had a higher slip-initiation risk that was associated …