Di Nardo Francesco, Laureati Giulio, Strazza Annachiara, Mengarelli Alessandro, Burattini Laura, Agostini Valentina, Nascimbeni Alberto, Knaflitz Marco, Fioretti Sandro
Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.
Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.
Gait Posture. 2017 Mar;53:254-259. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2017.02.009. Epub 2017 Feb 16.
EMG-based differences between females and males during walking are generally acknowledged in adults. Aim of the study was the quantification of possible gender differences in myoelectric activity of gastrocnemius lateralis (GL) and tibialis anterior (TA) during walking in school-age children. Gender-related comparison with adults was also provided to get possible novel insight in maturation of gait. To this aim, Statistical gait analysis, a recent methodology performing a statistical characterization of gait by averaging spatial-temporal and surface-EMG-based parameters over hundreds of strides, was performed in100 healthy school-age children (C-group) and in 33 healthy young adults (YA-group). On average, 301±110 consecutive strides were analyzed for each subject. In C-group, no significant differences (p>0.05) were observed between females and males in GL and TA, considering mean onset/offset instants of activation and occurrence frequency. Stratifying the C-group for age, small differences between females and males in occurrence frequency of GL arose in oldest children. In YA-group, females showed a significant propensity for a more complex recruitment of TA and GL (higher number of activations during gait cycle, quantified by occurrence frequency) compared to males. These outcomes suggest that gender-related differences in sEMG parameters do not characterize the recruitment of GL and TA during child walking in early years (6-8 years), start occurring when adolescence is approaching (10-12 years), and are acknowledged in both ankle muscles only in adults. Present findings seem to support previous studies on maturation of gait which indicate adolescence as the time-range where gait is completing its maturation path.
在成年人中，基于肌电图的行走过程中男女差异已得到普遍认可。本研究的目的是量化学龄儿童行走过程中腓骨外侧肌（GL）和胫骨前肌（TA）肌电活动中可能存在的性别差异。还提供了与成年人的性别相关比较，以获得步态成熟方面可能的新见解。为此，对100名健康学龄儿童（C组）和33名健康青年成年人（YA组）进行了统计步态分析，这是一种通过对数百步的时空参数和基于表面肌电图的参数进行平均来对步态进行统计表征的最新方法。平均而言，为每个受试者分析了301±110个连续步幅。在C组中，考虑激活的平均起始/偏移时刻和出现频率，GL和TA的男女之间未观察到显著差异（p>0.05）。按年龄对C组进行分层，在年龄最大的儿童中，GL出现频率的男女之间存在微小差异。在YA组中，与男性相比，女性在TA和GL的募集方面表现出更复杂的倾向（通过出现频率量化，步态周期中激活次数更多）。这些结果表明，表面肌电图参数中的性别相关差异在儿童早期（6 - 8岁）行走时并不表征GL和TA的募集情况，在青春期临近时（10 - 12岁）开始出现，并且仅在成年人的两个踝关节肌肉中才被确认。目前的研究结果似乎支持先前关于步态成熟的研究，这些研究表明青春期是步态完成其成熟过程的时间段。
