Comparison of Lower Limb Muscle Activities by Various Angles of a Medio-lateral Ramp During Gait

Sang-Yeol Lee, Soo-Hong Ahn
2017 Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine  
| Abstract |1 ) PURPOSE: This study investigated the activities of lower limb muscles according to the angle of a medio-lateral ramp while walking to promote awareness of the risks associated with a medio-lateral ramp. METHODS: This study was conducted on 20 healthy male adults. The muscle activities of the vastus medialis oblique (VMO), vastus lateralis oblique (VLO), tibialis anterior (TA) and peroneus longus (PL) were measured while the subjects were walking on a 3 m medio-lateral ramp. Five
more » ... angles (flat, 2°, 5°, 10°, and 15°) were selected for the angle conditions of the experiment on a medio-lateral ramp. The activities were measured during the stance phase only in the middle cycle of a three-cycle walking experiment. The mean value obtained from the three walking tests was used for the analysis. RESULTS: Results showed that walking on a mediolateral ramp required more muscle activities than walking on a flat surface, through which balanced walking was achieved. CONCLUSION: Walking on a medio-lateral ramp requires proper muscle activation and control, without which the risks † Corresponding Author : sjslh486@ks.ac.kr This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. of injury to the joints of the lower limbs and falls are likely to increase. Therefore, special attention should be given to older people and the disabled under the condition of traversing a ramp.
doi:10.13066/kspm.2017.12.3.93 fatcat:gkrpmbsbmjgvnfc6mfi4ritsdq