The assessment of gait
Grieve, D.W.
PhysioTherapy 55(11): 452-460
1969
ISSN/ISBN: 0031-9406 PMID: 5349466 Document Number: 5844
Research workers are not cursed with the immediate requirement for results and decisions in the way that you are in your practice. The records I have shown you were all obtained the hard way by laborious use of cine film. It takes 14 hours for a skilled analyst to measure up a film of a normal subject put through his paces and it takes another four hours to plot the charts. Cine film is completely unsuitable for clinical use. I am at the stage of being convinced that the charts would be useful if they could be instantly produced without skilled technical assistance and in the patient's presence. Anything less than this is unlikely to appeal, and one of the aims of the Biomechanics Laboratory at the Royal Free is to develop techniques for objectively recording with this in mind. One promising step towards it is a device called a Polgon, or polarised light goniometer, which measures the angles of the patient's limb. It does so repetitively, 50 times a second, so that as the patient walks past we can build an angle chart as it is happening. It is not yet simple enough and therefore is confined to the laboratory to await development.
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