Técnicas instrumentales de diagnóstico y evaluación en rehabilitación: estudio de la marcha

Walking is one of the most important daily human life activities. The fundamental objective of treatment in rehabilitation centers is after reestablishing or improving walking capacity. Efficacy of a treatment is found in the capacity not only of determining physiopathological causes but determining the dysfunctions and incapacitates and act on them. Modern 3 dimensional (3D) motion analysis systems with force plate offer the possibility of obtaining kinematic objective data (movements), and, of greater interest, kinetic data (torques and power) of all the joints during the different walking phases. These data are very useful to describe intimate mechanisms that underlie walking disorders. In effect, having information on the forces that are generated in each moment in the different joints makes it possible to establish precisely what role the active (muscles with their hyperactivities and/or weaknesses) and passive (tendons, bones, ligaments, articular capsules and muscles in relationship to shortening or laxitudes) elements generate in walking alterations. In fact, at present and in the clinical practice, there is already consensus regarding the utility of 3D motion analysis for planning and monitoring treatment of walking disorders in patients with cerebral palsy and spasticity. Furthermore, by extension, it is very useful to orient the treatment of neurology patients in general with walking disorders. Its utility in orthopedic patients, a field in which there may be great expansion, is also not insignificant. Finally, it is not necessary to stress its great importance in the scope of basic and applied research in rehabilitation. There is no scientific rehabilitation journal in which some article does not appear showing results of experiments done with movement analysis systems.