ABSTRACT
More than 10% of the adult population has some difculty walking 400 m, and in the elderly, this gure increases to more than 50%.1,2 Many professionals, including physiotherapists, prosthetists, orthotists, podiatrists, and specialists in orthopedic rehabilitation and neurological medicine, devote a considerable part of their working lives to helping such people walk more easily. Many of the interventions that these professionals administer are based on an assessment of how the individual walks, and this is largely based on direct observation. In this sense, “clinical gait analysis” is as old as the above professions. Pioneers such as the neurologist Guillaume Duschenne (1806-1875) and the orthopedic surgeon Freiderich Trendelenberg (1844-1924) made considerable use of their observational skills to inform their clinical practice. Over the last 30 years, however, technologies have been developed to measure various aspects of walking and have been incorporated into clinical services to make this information available to health professionals. It is clinical gait analysis, in this sense, that is the focus of this chapter.
