Gait Analysis in the Animal Locomotion Lab

My research this summer in the Animal Locomotion Lab consists of analyzing humans and their gait during movements such as walking with stiff legs, running, and walking compliantly. For reference, walking with stiff legs is the typical human gait, while walking compliantly is the equivalent of walking like an ape when they walk on two feet. There are three things that the lab is looking at within this one dataset: method validation, figuring out why evolutionarily humans many have developed their signature bipedal walk, and figuring out how to increase quality of life for people who have had parts of their pelvis removed.

One piece of the work with the dataset includes validating the ways that the data was collected in order to make future data collection easier as well as motion capture technology more accessible in clinical settings( where it is underutilized but could be very useful). The current way of capturing force, angle, velocity, and acceleration data for movement analysis was by using a force plate, cameras, and code to digitize each of the markers, and hand analysis. All of these steps are not intuitive to people who are not in the field, require a lot of time, and also require a lot of money and resources to implement. The new way to gather motion capture data is through a program called OpenCap. In order to run this program, all you need is two IOS devices and the OpenCap program.

The second thing that will be looked at with this data is a potential explanation for why humans may have developed the stiff leg walk. We are the only mammals who walk the way that we do, so it is very intriguing to anthropologists to discover both why and how that came about. How is a much more difficult question, so for now, the animal locomotion lab will focus on why it could have happened.  By analyzing the force patterns and loads of how we walk today compared to how out closet ancestors walk, we may be able to find that answer.

Lastly, the data will also be used as a comparison for patients who have had parts of their pelvis removed. Analyzing their gait will lead to answering questions about how surgeons and physical therapists can cater their care to these patients and better their quality of life.