The Effect of Shoe Heel Types and Gait Speeds on Knee Joint Angle in Healthy Young Women – A Preliminary Study

Vantha Chhoeum; Changwon Wang; Seungwan Jang; Se Dong Min; Young Kim; Min-Hyung Choi

The Effect of Shoe Heel Types and Gait Speeds on Knee Joint Angle in Healthy Young Women – A Preliminary Study

Vantha Chhoeum, Changwon Wang, Seungwan Jang, Se Dong Min, Young Kim, Min-Hyung Choi, Journal of Internet Computing and Services, Vol. 21, No. 6, pp. 41-50, Dec. 2020

10.7472/jksii.2020.21.6.41, Full Text:

Keywords: High heels, Outsole, Gait, Knee joint angle

Abstract

The consequences of wearing high heels can be different according to the heel height, gait speed, shoe design, heel base area, and shoe size. This study aimed to focus on the knee extension and flexion range of motion (ROM) during gait, which were challenged by wearing five different shoe heel types and two different self-selected gait speeds (comfortable and fast) as experimental conditions. Measurement standards of knee extension and flexion ROM were individually calibrated at the time of heel strike, mid-stance, toe-off, and stance phase based on the 2-minute video recordings of each gait condition. Seven healthy young women (20.7 ± 0.8 years) participated and they were asked to walk on a treadmill wearing the five given shoes at a self-selected comfortable speed (average of 2.4 ± 0.3 km/h) and a fast speed (average of 5.1 ± 0.2 km/h) in a random order. All of the shoes were in size 23.5 cm. Three of the given shoes were 9.0 cm in height, the other two were flat shoes and sneakers. A motion capture software (Kinovea 0.8.27) was used to measure the kinematic data; changes in the knee angles during each gait. During fast speed gait, the knee extension angles at heel strike and mid-stance were significantly decreased in all of the 3 high heels (p<0.05). The results revealed that fast gait speed causes knee flexion angle to significantly increase at toe-off in all five types of shoes. However, there was a significant difference in both the knee flexion and extension angles when the gait in stiletto heels and flat shoes were compared in fast gait condition (p<0.05). This showed that walking fast in high heels leads to abnormal knee ROM and thus can cause damages to the knee joints. The findings in this preliminary study can be a basis for future studies on the kinematic changes in the lower extremity during gait and for the analysis of causes and preventive methods for musculoskeletal injuries related to wearing high heels.

Statistics

Show / Hide Statistics

Statistics (Cumulative Counts from November 1st, 2017)
Multiple requests among the same browser session are counted as one view.
If you mouse over a chart, the values of data points will be shown.

Cite this article

[APA Style]

Chhoeum, V., Wang, C., Jang, S., Min, S., Kim, Y., & Choi, M. (2020). The Effect of Shoe Heel Types and Gait Speeds on Knee Joint Angle in Healthy Young Women – A Preliminary Study. Journal of Internet Computing and Services, 21(6), 41-50. DOI: 10.7472/jksii.2020.21.6.41.

[IEEE Style]

V. Chhoeum, C. Wang, S. Jang, S. D. Min, Y. Kim, M. Choi, "The Effect of Shoe Heel Types and Gait Speeds on Knee Joint Angle in Healthy Young Women – A Preliminary Study," Journal of Internet Computing and Services, vol. 21, no. 6, pp. 41-50, 2020. DOI: 10.7472/jksii.2020.21.6.41.

[ACM Style]

Vantha Chhoeum, Changwon Wang, Seungwan Jang, Se Dong Min, Young Kim, and Min-Hyung Choi. 2020. The Effect of Shoe Heel Types and Gait Speeds on Knee Joint Angle in Healthy Young Women – A Preliminary Study. Journal of Internet Computing and Services, 21, 6, (2020), 41-50. DOI: 10.7472/jksii.2020.21.6.41.