The effects of hip abductor muscles fatigue on kinematics gait parameters in the Elderly men

Hip abductors muscles play a role in providing stability and movement to the lower limbs. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of hip abductors muscles fatigue on kinematics gait parameters in the Elderly men.

The participants of this study included sixteen healthy elderly men without a history of falling with a mean age (65.62±5.77 years(, mass (75.25±1.37 kg(, height (169±6.07 cm(. In the pre-test, gait kinematics evaluation was performed using a motion analysis device. Then the subjects participated in the hip abductor muscles fatigue program and immediately after the fatigue, gait kinematics evaluation was performed like a pre-test. Data collected through the Cortex software was analyzed and extracted in Excel file format. A paired sample t-test was used to compare the results before and after fatigue.

Results:

 The findings showed that after applying the fatigue protocol, the angular displacement of the lower limbs during gait was significantly decreased (p <0.05). In addition, the step length of gait after fatigue decreased significantly before fatigue (p< 0.05).

Conclusion :

The results of this study showed that the step length and kinematic of the hip, knee, and ankle joints during of walking are the effects of fatigue the hip abductor muscles. Therefore, the hip abductor muscles weakness can be a risk factor for falling and injuring during walking in the elderly population.