Effects of High heeled shoe on the ground reaction forces (GRF) during Walking

Abstract

Abstract:

Gait analysis is the best scientific and  quantitative method for studying and determining the deviations of human gait parameters. Ground reaction forces (GRFs) between foot and ground  are very important parameters in gait analysis, because any changes in the behavior of the human body segments will be reflected on the pattern and magnitudes of GRFs.

Many researchers have studied the effects of high heeled shoe on the gait parameters, but only a few of them measured and analyze GRFs. Therefore, its very important to measure GRFs in order to determine the negative effects of high heeled shoe on women’s health.

In this work the biomechanical laboratory at Damascus university was used, It has two Kistler force plates to measure the ground reaction forces (GRFs) between the foot and ground, and Six TV – Cameras to register the three dimensional motion for the whole body of the participant and they all ran at sampling frequency of 200 Hz.  Fourteen girls Participated in  this work, they were approximately of the same age, length and weight. The GRFs were measured for each participant in six different heel height cases: they are bare feet, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12 cm.

The results showed that waring high heeled shoe have decreased the push off force as the motion of the ankle joint was restricted. It’s also found that the resistance of the body forwards  movement increased  with waring high heeled shoe. These changes increased when the heel height was increased.

Keywords: Gait analysis, GRFs, Gait deviation, kinetics of gait parameters, high heel.