10.20381/ruor-6490
Sinitski, Emily H
Transtibial Amputee and Able-bodied Walking Strategies for Maintaining Stable Gait in a Multi-terrain Virtual Environment
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
2014
Virtual reality
Biomechanics
Gait
Walking stability
Amputee
6DOF motion platform
Treadmill
Self-paced
Slope
Uneven terrain
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
2014-08-29
2014-08-29
2014
2014
en
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10393/31515
The CAREN-Extended system is a fully immersive virtual environment (VE) that can provide stability-challenging scenarios in a safe, controlled manner. Understanding gait biomechanics when stability is challenged is required when developing quantifiable metrics for rehabilitation assessment. The first objective of this thesis was to examine the VE’s technical aspects to ensure data validity and to design a stability-challenging VE scenario. The second and third objectives examined walking speed changes and kinematic strategies when stability was challenged for able-bodied and unilateral transtibial amputees. The results from this thesis demonstrated: 1) understanding VE operating characteristics are important to ensure data validity and to effectively design virtual scenarios; 2) self-paced treadmill mode for VEs with multiple movement scenarios may elicit more natural gait; 3) gait variability and trunk motion measures are useful when quantitatively assessing stability performance for people with transtibial amputations.