The individuality of plantar pressure indices enables the reduction of descriptive gait data required for diagnostic purposes

The diagnostic utility of gait analysis requires reducing the amount of measurement data while ensuring minimal loss of assessment accuracy, which in turn necessitates selection of gait descriptors that can capture unique gait characteristics with the greatest effectiveness. As changes in movement are more apparent in the spatial distribution of forces, we started from the assumption that kinetic indices can capture gait variation more clearly than kinematic indices. We juxtaposed the individuality of barographic indices across foot regions for force, pressure, plantar area, and contact time. We captured pressure distributions during free gait from 19 individuals in a highly homogeneous group of young healthy women who participated 200 walking trials. Time presented the highest individuality, the lowest regional differentiation, and the lowest variation. Force, pressure, and surface area exhibited comparably high individuality for certain parts of the foot. Intraindividual variation constituted a more individual feature than did the values themselves. Since the temporal domain proved to be more informative for individual gait patterns, it should be prioritised in diagnostic assessment. Regional differentiation was found to be the most informative data for gait variation and can be used to increase the diagnostic utility of gait descriptive data.