Role of Ankle Joint in Successful Reactive-Recovery: A 3D Joint Moment Analysis

Abstract

Understanding successful reactive-recovery is essential to further exploration of slip induced fall event. The objective of the current study was to characterize the net ankle joint moment pattern during reactive-recovery process. Six out of fifteen healthy young adults were selected as input for the current investigation. The three-dimensional (3D) inverse dynamics approach was applied to calculate net ankle joint moments in all the three planes (frontal, sagittal and transverse). Gait conditions (normal and reactive-recovery) significantly affected the absolute ankle peak moment and time to peak at p ≤ 0.05 level. The time to peak in the ankle frontal plane was the only one not affected. The ankle frontal and transverse joint moment was found to play an important role during the reactive-recovery process. Consequently, the necessity of a complete 3D joint moment analysis especially for slip and fall incidents was justified.