Quantitative analysis of gait and balance disorders in patients after total knee arthroplasty

Gait disorders after total knee arthroplasty remains a significant clinical problem requiring objective quantitative approaches to assessing the degree of deviation of movement patterns from physiological norms.

The aim of the study is to develop and test a method for quantitative assessing the degree of deviation of gait parameters and postural stability in patients after total knee arthroplasty.

Using a database including 36 joint angular parameters and 11 stabilometric parameters from 52 patients and 37 healthy controls, 26 parameters were identified that showed statistically significant differences between the groups. A model of the physiological norm was constructed based on the Mahalanobis distance in a reduced 5-dimensional feature space formed using principal component analysis. It was found that, for this distance, the subgroup of patients with mechanical alignment of the endoprosthesis exhibited more pronounced differences from the control group than the subgroup of patients with kinematic alignment. Overall, it has been demonstrated that the Mahalanobis distance assessment in the formed feature space can serve as an integral characteristic of the degree of deviation of gait parameters and postural stability from the norm.

The proposed method for the integral assessment of patients' gait and balance parameters can serve as a basis for developing systems for objective monitoring of the functional recovery of patients after knee arthroplasty.