Montagnani Eleonora, Morrison Stewart C, Price Carina
School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton, Darley Road, Eastbourne, United Kingdom.
School of Life Course and Population Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, United Kingdom.
Gait Posture. 2023 May;102:93-99. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2023.03.006. Epub 2023 Mar 11.
Due to its easy and straightforward use, regional analysis with the "standard" mask is the most common approach for quantifying plantar pressures in infancy. Such a mask, however, identifies foot regions based on typical foot proportions and pressure gradients. Alternatively, the use of a customised mask retaining infants' feet proportions has not been explored.
Does a customised mask scaled on infants' feet improve processing of pressure data collected during walking development compared with a standard mask?
Thirteen infants walked across an EMED xl platform. Steps were grouped applying eight foot-regions standard and customised masks. To evaluate masks' performance, peak pressure (PP) and contact area (CA) were extracted from each region, and mask. Intra-individual coefficients of variation were then calculated for each variable, and compared between masks using a Mann-Whitney U test (p < 0.05). Unsuccessful masks application was reported, expressed as percentage of data loss.
For CA variation, significant differences were found in all the regions but the lateral toes in new (Z = -0.184, p = 0.8540) and confident walking (Z = -1.562, p = 0.118). For PP variation, a significant difference was found in confident walking within the lateral midfoot (Z = -2.598, p = 0.009). With the standard mask, 22-27 % of data was lost in new and confident walking respectively, compared to 1.6-0 % with the customised. As a result, the customised mask characterised the more variable steps, demonstrating higher variation compared to the standard mask.
Identifying foot regions using a mask based on infants' feet proportions yielded an improved performance compared to the standard mask. With the customised mask, we retained almost all the steps and characterised the variability of the data, thereby providing an appropriate approach for infants' pressure data processing. Application of the customised mask could therefore be beneficial in future studies analysing highly variable data sets.
由于其使用简便直接，使用“标准”面罩进行区域分析是量化婴儿足底压力最常用的方法。然而，这种面罩是根据典型的足部比例和压力梯度来识别足部区域的。另外，尚未探索使用保留婴儿足部比例的定制面罩。
与标准面罩相比，根据婴儿足部尺寸定制的面罩是否能改善步行发育过程中收集的压力数据的处理？
13名婴儿走过一个EMED xl平台。使用八个足部区域的标准和定制面罩对步态进行分组。为了评估面罩的性能，从每个区域和面罩中提取峰值压力（PP）和接触面积（CA）。然后计算每个变量的个体内变异系数，并使用曼-惠特尼U检验在面罩之间进行比较（p < 0.05）。报告面罩应用失败的情况，以数据丢失的百分比表示。
对于CA变异，在新步态（Z = -0.184，p = 0.8540）和自信步态（Z = -1.562，p = 0.118）中，除外侧脚趾外的所有区域均未发现显著差异。对于PP变异，在自信步态的外侧中足区域发现显著差异（Z = -2.598，p = 0.009）。使用标准面罩时，新步态和自信步态中分别有22%-27%的数据丢失，而定制面罩的数据丢失率为1.6%-0%。因此，定制面罩能够更好地刻画变化较大的步态，与标准面罩相比显示出更高的变异性。
与标准面罩相比，使用基于婴儿足部比例的面罩来识别足部区域具有更好的性能。使用定制面罩，我们几乎保留了所有步态并刻画了数据的变异性，从而为婴儿压力数据处理提供了一种合适的方法。因此，定制面罩的应用可能对未来分析高度可变数据集的研究有益。
