Generalized Lower Limb Joint Angular Phase Space Analysis of Subject Specific Normal and Modified Gait

This study presents and applies generalized angular phase space analysis to lower limb joint angles of specific subject during normal and modified gait for discrimination of gait and joint angular movements. Case study of an adult healthy male in-vivo and noninvasive kinematic assessment of skin surface adhesive markers at lower limb was performed at human movement lab during normal gait, stiff knee gait and slow running. Musculoskeletal modeling was performed using AnyGait v.0.92 morphing Twente Lower Extremity Model (TLEM) to match the size and joint morphology of the stick-figure model. Inverse kinematics was performed obtaining hip, knee and ankle joint flexion-extension angular displacements, velocities and accelerations. Generalized phase space analysis was applied to lower limb joint angular displacements, velocities and accelerations. Directional statistics was applied to generalized phase planes with mean direction, resultant length and circular standard deviation assessment. Rayleigh test was employed for directional concentration and coordination assessment, and Watson's U² goodness of fit test applied to the von Mises distribution. Results point for the importance of subject specific study, generalized joint angular phase space analysis, comparing results with other normalization methods and validation of applied methods with qualitative clinical analysis.