@article{ref1,
title="The development of mature gait patterns in children during walking and running",
journal="European journal of applied physiology",
year="2021",
author="Dominici, Nadia and Daffertshofer, Andreas and Bach, Margit M.",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="PURPOSE: We sought to identify the developing maturity of walking and running in young children. We assessed gait patterns for the presence of flight and double  support phases complemented by mechanical energetics. The corresponding  classification outcomes were contrasted via a shotgun approach involving several  potentially informative gait characteristics. A subsequent clustering turned out  very effective to classify the degree of gait maturity. <br><br>METHODS: Participants (22  typically developing children aged 2-9 years and 7 young, healthy adults) walked/ran  on a treadmill at comfortable speeds. We determined double support and flight phases  and the relationship between potential and kinetic energy oscillations of the  center-of-mass. Based on the literature, we further incorporated a total of 93 gait  characteristics (including the above-mentioned ones) and employed multivariate  statistics comprising principal component analysis for data compression and  hierarchical clustering for classification. <br><br>RESULTS: While the ability to run  including a flight phase increased with age, the flight phase did not reach 20% of  the gait cycle. It seems that children use a walk-run-strategy when learning to run. Yet, the correlation strength between potential and kinetic energies saturated and  so did the amount of recovered mechanical energy. Clustering the set of gait  characteristics allowed for classifying gait in more detail. This defines a metric  for maturity in terms of deviations from adult gait, which disagrees with  chronological age. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: The degree of gait maturity estimated statistically  using various gait characteristics does not always relate directly to the  chronological age of the child.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1439-6319",
doi="10.1007/s00421-020-04592-2",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00421-020-04592-2"
}