Assessment of varus thrust using inertial measurement units.

Background: Varus thrust is common in those with knee osteoarthritis. Varus thrust is traditionally identified with visual analysis or motion capture, methods that are either dichotomous or limited to the laboratory setting. Inertial measurement unit data has been found to correlate with motion capture measures of varus thrust in those with severe knee osteoarthritis, allowing for a quantitative and accessible way of measuring varus thrust.

Gait kinematics differ by bout duration and setting.

Background: Gait kinematics differ between settings and among young and older adults with and without knee osteoarthritis. Out-of-lab data has a variety of walking bout characteristics compared to controlled in-lab settings. The effect of walking bout duration on gait analysis results is unclear, and there is no standardized procedure for segmenting or selecting out-of-lab data for analysis.

Lower Extremity Inverse Kinematics Results Differ Between Inertial Measurement Unit- and Marker-Derived Gait Data.

In-lab, marker-based gait analyses may not represent real-world gait. Real-world gait analyses may be feasible using inertial measurement units (IMUs) in combination with open-source data processing pipelines (OpenSense). Before using OpenSense to study real-world gait, we must determine whether these methods estimate joint kinematics similarly to traditional marker-based motion capture (MoCap) and differentiate groups with clinically different gait mechanics.