Evaluation of weight-bearing, walking stability, and gait symmetry in patients undergoing restoration following hip joint fractures

This study numerically quantifies patients' restoration following a range of hip joint fractures. Ground reaction force (GRF) data collected from 221 subjects was grouped into four conditions: hip coxa fracture (HC), pelvis fracture (HP), femur fracture (HF), and normal hip joint (NH). The GRF data were windowed into three subphases: initial double-limb support, single-limb support, and terminal double-limb support. During each subphase, the thresholds of mass normalised GRF were calculated for both fractured and intact limbs. The results showed a significant decline (p < 0.001) in walking stability and weight-bearing ability for all hip fractures. Furthermore, the fractured patients showed a massive increase in interlimb weight-bearing dependency (up to 20%) in the vertical direction in comparison to normal subjects, and a significant decrease in interlimb symmetries (up to 28%) in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions. The methods and findings provide a comprehensive package to evaluate fracture restoration clinically using 3D-GRF.