Human gait classification after lower limb fracture using Artificial Neural Networks and principal component analysis.

Vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) has been commonly used in human gait analysis making possible the study of mechanical overloads in the locomotor system. This study aimed at applying the principal component (PC) analysis and two Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), multi-layer feed forward (FF) and self organized maps (SOM), for classifying and clustering gait patterns from normal subjects (CG) and patients with lower limb fractures (FG). The vGRF from a group of 51 subjects, including 38 in CG and 13 in FG were used for PC analysis and classification.