Association of Arch Stiffness with Plantar Impulse Distribution during Walking, Running, and Gait Termination

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine relationships between arch stiffness and relative regional impulse during walking, running, and stopping. A total of 61 asymptomatic male subjects volunteered to participate in the study. All were classified by calculating the arch stiffness index using 3-dimensional foot morphological scanning. Plantar pressure distribution data were collected from participants using a Footscan pressure platform during gait tests that included walking, running, and gait termination. The stiff arches group (n = 19) and flexible arches group (n = 17) were included in the following data analysis. The results suggested that subjects with stiffer arches had a larger and smaller percentage of plantar impulse in the forefoot and rearfoot, respectively, than subjects with more flexible arches during walking and running. However, during gait termination, which included planned and unplanned gait stopping, the plantar impulse distribution pattern was found to be reversed. The current findings demonstrate that the distributional changes of plantar loading follow unidirectional transfer between the forefoot and the rearfoot on the plantar longitudinal axis. Moreover, the patterns of impulse distribution are also different based on different gait task mechanisms.

No Association of Plantar Aponeurosis Stiffness with Medial Longitudinal Arch Stiffness

“…The measurement accuracy of MLA stiffness may be another possible explanation for the lack of correlation between the MLA stiffness and plantar aponeurosis stiffness. In most previous studies [12][13][14] as well as in the present one, MLA stiffness was calculated using the displacement of the arch height between a supine or sitting position and standing position. The navicular drop is in-▶Table 2 Descriptive data on navicular height, medial longitudinal arch stiffness, and shear wave velocity of plantar aponeurosis.…”

“…Then, MLA stiffness was calculated by dividing body mass by the difference in navicular height between the supine and standing positions and used for further analyses. The procedure of the present study differed slightly from that of previous studies [12][13][14] in the following ways. First, the present study adopted the length between the toe and heel edges as the foot length, whereas some previous studies used truncated foot length [12][13][14].…”

“…The procedure of the present study differed slightly from that of previous studies [12][13][14] in the following ways. First, the present study adopted the length between the toe and heel edges as the foot length, whereas some previous studies used truncated foot length [12][13][14]. However, the length between the toe and heel edges (i. e., the total foot length) has been reported to correlate extremely well with the truncated foot length (r 2 = 0.943-0.947; [15]).…”

Effect of additional body weight on arch index and dynamic plantar pressure distribution during walking and gait termination

“…Hotfiel et al (2017) suggested that the heel, i.e., calcaneus, as the anatomical structure that contacts firstly with the ground after the terminal swing phase and is the main reason that the highest values were measured in the rearfoot area. Excessive peak pressures might increase the risk of foot injuries such as stress fractures (Chatzipapas et al, 2008;Zhou & Ugbolue, 2019;Cen et al, 2020). Plantar pressure changes in the forefoot were consistent with distribution shifts from the lateral to the medial metatarsal in patients with flat feet (Arangio & Salathé, 2001).…”

“…Compared to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 3-Dimensional foot morphological scanning has the advantages of quickness, convenience and cheapness, and has been proven previously to have superior reliability (Liang et al, 2019;Shu et al, 2015). The resolution, smoothing and hole filling were set at 1.0 mm, 30 mm and 100 mm, respectively (Cen et al, 2020). While the feet were scanned subjects were asked to stand barefoot in a standardized position while keeping the body mass stable without movement.…”