Clin Pediatr | Volume 2, Issue 1 | Research Article | Open Access
Mandar Malawade* and Sandeep Shinde
Department of Pediatric Physiotherapy, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, India
*Correspondance to: Mandar Malawade
Fulltext PDFBackground: Human gait has always been a topic for researchers’ interest. The lower extremities and its movement with regards to the head, arms and trunk as a single unit is usual task for the study purpose. Meanwhile, where arm movements have received virtually no attention. There is considerable evidence that arm swing is an essential component of locomotion for human walking. Walking without arm swing increases the metabolic cost of walking. It results either because of the greater angular momentum about the vertical that needs to be counteracted, or maybe because of the larger vertical movements of the center of mass that occur when the arms do not swing upward when the trunk moves downward. The literature suggests that, arm swing during human locomotion enhances gait stability. The gait variations in pediatric age group, is observed due to growth and development of child’s body. Following study was conducted to find out whether arm swing has the same effect on gait in pediatric age group as it has on adults. Another objective was to find out the dependency of hand dominance on gait cycle in children. Method and
Results: Twenty children were assessed for their gait parameters in relation with their natural arm swing, restricting dominant arm swing and bilateral arm swing restriction. ANOVA test was used for the statistical analysis. There was extremely significant difference observed in gait parameters (step length, stride length and step width) while allowing normal arm swing, with dominant arm bound and with both arm bound.
Conclusion: There is impact of dominance of arm and arm swing of gait parameters in children.
Gait parameters; Arm swing; Arm dominance
Malawade M, Shinde S. Effects of Arm Swing and Dominance on Various Gait Parameters in Children. Clin Pediatri. 2019; 2: 1013.