Assessing the Impact of Body Mass Index on Gait Symmetry of Able-Bodied Adults Using Pressure-Sensitive Insole

Walking, explicitly known as gait, is a basic activity of daily living and involves coordinated neuromuscular mechanisms. The coordination of lower extremities is reflected in a symmetric gait. The asymmetry may result from disorders affecting motor cortex. Besides, physical and psychological factors such as body weight, age, depression, and anxiety also cause this asymmetry. Particularly, abnormal weight distribution as in obesity has been explored as a promising contributing factor of this asymmetry. The study assessed the influence of abnormal weight distribution as indicated by body mass index (BMI) of adults over gait symmetry. Force-sensitive resistor embedded insole was developed for extracting swing time, a temporal gait parameter, of adults. Thirty-nine subjects with varying BMIs participated in this study and were divided into four classes guided by their BMI scores as underweight (< 18.5), normal weight (18.5–24.9), overweight (25.0–29.9) and obese (> 30.0). Swing time of both feet during normal walking was calculated. Results of one-way ANOVA showed that swing time of the abnormal weighted individuals has a significant effect (p = 0.002) over asymmetry of gait. The findings of this study suggest that body mass distribution might be used as a reference factor for rehabilitation to have far more objective evaluations of gait.