Relationships between walking speed, T-score and age with gait parameters in older post-menopausal women with low bone mineral density.

Background: The gait patterns of women with low bone mineral density (BMD) or osteoporosis have not been thoroughly explored, and when examined, often studied in relation to falls and kyphosis.

Research Question: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between gait parameters and comfortable, self-selected walking speed and BMD in older post-menopausal women with a broad range of T-scores (healthy to osteoporotic).

Methods: 3D kinematic and kinetic data were collected from forty-five women mean (SD) age 67.

The effect of boundary constraints on finite element modelling of the human pelvis.

The use of finite element analysis (FEA) to investigate the biomechanics of anatomical systems critically relies on the specification of physiologically representative boundary conditions. The biomechanics of the pelvis has been the specific focus of a number of FEA studies previously, but it is also a key aspect in other investigations of, for example, the hip joint or new design of hip prostheses. In those studies, the pelvis has been modelled in a number of ways with a variety of boundary conditions, ranging from a model of the whole pelvic girdle including soft tissue attachments to a model of an isolated hemi-pelvis.