Stabilization and compensation strategy of the hip angle during gait in hip-osteoarthritis patients from the perspective of whole-body movement synergy.

Background: The implementation of a strategy to control the hip angle during gait is important to avoid disease progression in patients with hip osteoarthritis (OA).

Research Question: Do patients with hip OA tend to stabilize their hip angles by a combination of whole-body movements during gait in terms of variability?

Methods: A public gait dataset comprising 80 asymptomatic participants and 106 patients with hip OA was used. Uncontrolled manifold analysis was performed using the joint angles as elemental variables and the hip joint angles as performance variables. The synergy index ΔV, variances of elemental variables that did not affect the performance variable (V) and of those that affected the performance variable (V), and index of covariation strategy (COV) were calculated in sagittal and frontal plane. A one-sample t-test for statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis was used for ΔV and COV. Two-sample t-tests of SPM analyses were used for ΔV, V, and V to compare the two groups.

Results: In both planes, the ΔV and COV were significantly larger than zero in both groups (p < 0.001). In the sagittal plane, the V was higher in the hip OA group than in the control group after 77 % of stance phase. In the frontal plane, the hip OA group had larger ΔV and V after last half and last quartile of stance phase compared to the control group, respectively. The V was smaller in the hip OA group than in the control group.

Significance: The hip angle was stabilized in the hip OA group in the frontal plane but insufficiently stabilized in the sagittal plane; however, the patients changed their hip angle during the early phase of stance. The combination of whole-body movements contributed to the stabilization of hip angle.