Biomechanical Variables of Gait Initiation and Gait Termination with Emphasis on Instruments, Floors, and Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Systematic Review

One of the most commonly used human movements that plays an essential part of many daily activities and competitive or group sports is gait. Gait initiation is the first step after changing from static to dynamic status of walking and gait termination is the last step before changing from dynamic to static status. By accepting the effect of the properties of floor coverings, people's age, diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders on biomechanical parameters of human's movement, it seems that not only the pattern of muscular activity and the biomechanical parameters of gait initiation and gait termination are different from the routine gait, but these variables are influenced by individual's conditions and various surfaces on which people move on, too. On the other hand, people's imbalance and fall often occur at gait initiation or gait termination. Identifying kinematic and kinetic parameters of gait initiation and gait termination provides useful information to recognize the disturbances of this phase of gait, its pathology, and performance correction. The aim of the present study is reviewing studies carried out since the end of the twentieth century on biomechanical variables of gait initiation and gait termination in different groups and different conditions.
Searching articles was done from databases including PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Mendely, using “gait initiation, gait termination, kinematics, and kinetics” keywords. More than 300 articles on the pattern of muscle activity and biomechanical parameters of gait initiation and gait termination were found. After studying and deleting articles with similar results and articles on therapeutic protocols from the total number of articles, more than 40 articles that were directly related to the subject matter were studied.
From among the papers located, several studies were about planned and unplanned gait initiation or gait termination, gait initiation or gait termination on different floor coverings, in various age groups or people with musculoskeletal disorders.
According to the articles studied, it can be stated that different motor strategies are used at gait initiation at low and high velocities and the young and old groups always uses different muscle activity patterns in different phases of gait initiation. It seems that athletes and active people benefit from better muscle strength and shorter reaction times to prevent collapse and injury making use of compensatory mechanisms.