Video Gait Analysis

A side view of a foot with a hand holding the ankle. The ankle is highlighted red signifying pain

While walking or running feels like an effortless task for you, the feet and legs work in incredibly complex ways to not only produce movement, but enable you to keep walking painlessly step after step, and day after day. A video gait analysis enables our podiatrists to look closely at the intricacies of how you walk and run, using this information as a powerful tool to guide your care and treatment with us.

What Is Video Gait Analysis And What Is It Used For?

Video gait and running analysis examines the intricacies of how your muscles, ligaments, joints and bones work together while you walk and run, as recorded by video while you’re on our treadmill in the clinic. This is paired with an in-shoe pressure analysis to see how your feet and joints are absorbing and responding to the pressure placed on them from daily life. This comprehensive analysis provides our podiatrists with a wealth of information to help assess, diagnose and treat any foot problems, prevent injury, or optimise your performance. As such, it is a routine and critical part of our biomechanical assessments that we conduct when a person has foot or leg pain or an injury, so we can understand the role a person's gait plays, and treat the problem effectively and efficiently.

Superior Technology To Help Optimise Your Walking And Running Movement

We’re proud to invest into leading technology to optimise your care with us. When it comes to your gait analysis, there are two important components we use:

Video gait analysis

Video gait analysis starts by capturing your natural movement pattern on a treadmill, matching the pace at which you’d normally walk or run. Recording this footage allows you and your podiatrist to replay it frame by frame via our analysis software where we will observe your biomechanical movement patterns, take measurements, calculate angles - all to give you comprehensive feedback on exactly what is happening with your feet when you walk. Our patients love that the footage is replayed slowly, and that we take the time to show you exactly what we’re seeing and what it means for your foot health. It often leads to many ‘aha!’ moments for our patients, where the symptoms they’re experiencing that felt out of the blue suddenly make sense. The results and observations made from this footage are then used to help create your treatment plan.

In-shoe pressure analysis

In-shoe pressure analysis gives us precise information about the stress being placed on different areas of your feet while you stand or move. We use a specific system called paroTec, which is placed inside your shoes, and proceeds to capture step by step data of how the pressure beneath your feet is distributed at any point in time. This gives us an even deeper understanding of the forces your feet are being exposed to, and how they are connected to any symptoms or problems that you may be experiencing.  

What Video Gait Analysis Can Tell You

Video gait analysis as well as in-shoe pressure analysis can offer a range of insights including:

  • Identifying atypical movement patterns
  • Which biomechanical factors are contributing to your foot pain
  • Why your injury may not be going away, or why you’re not progressing in your recovery at the expected rate
  • Where muscle imbalances may be present, including areas of tightness or weakness
  • How your body is compensating for foot pain and problems
  • Identifying features like leg length discrepancies - and the subsequent effects on your body
  • Where improvements can be made to optimise your sports performance or general movement
  • Ways to reduce your injury risk
  • The pressure that your current shoes are exposing your feet to
  • How your orthotics are altering the function of your feet and legs
  • How your orthotics are changing the pressure experienced by the different areas of your feet with every step
  • Guide optimal footwear selection

How Does A Video Gait Analysis Assessment Work?

Your role in a video gait analysis is simple. Your podiatrist will help you insert the pressure analysis inserts into your shoes, and you’ll be asked to walk normally on a treadmill, provided your pain or symptoms don’t make this difficult or unsafe for you. We’ll turn the treadmill on to a natural walking speed, and you’ll walk for approximately one minute, which includes approximately 30 seconds of continuous recording. Depending on the nature of your injury and your sports involvement, we may also ask you to run at a natural pace on the treadmill. After that, it’s all over to your podiatrist to analyse your gait and show you exactly what they’re seeing.

Benefits Of Video Gait Analysis

The benefits of video gait analysis and in-shoe pressure assessment lies in the wealth of information that this technology offers. This includes:

Understand your physiology

The data and analysis you receive gives you a much deeper understanding of your physiology - the way your body is intricately working together to perform movement. You’ll better understand how and why things are working the way they do, uncovering the reason behind any pains or problems you’re experiencing. Once you know what’s going on and why, you’re in the best place to make impactful changes and make the best decisions for your body under a range of circumstances - from buying shoes to selecting specific workouts.

Diagnose conditions associated with running or sport

You receive precise, accurate and reliable data that is used to form both your diagnosis and identify the specific causes relating to your foot problem, including those associated with running or sport. This enables you to have a greater insight into the conditions and how they arose, and then use those insights to create optimal treatment plans.

Improve foot, knee and back discomfort

Our feet are the foundations of our body, and affect the chain all the way up to our knees, hips and back. When discomfort is present, we can look to our biomechanics and foot pressure to understand what’s causing the discomfort, and then make adjustments to improve how we move, promoting seamless pain-free movement.

Optimise your movement for running and sport

For some of our patients, it’s not about treating an injury or problem, but simply helping them stay at the top of their game. In this case, we use the video gait analysis to identify dysfunctional movement patterns, muscle imbalances and other areas where improvements can be made to lead to optimal, powerful sports performance.

Check the effects of treatments and interventions

Gait analysis can also be used to track your progress and the effects of interventions such as orthotics, enabling your podiatrist to make quick adjustments based on real-time feedback as needed. 

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