Abstract
Background: Females have a two-fold risk of developing knee osteoarthritis (OA) as compared to their male
counterparts and atypical walking gait biomechanics are also considered a factor in the aetiology of knee OA.
However, few studies have investigated sex-related differences in walking mechanics for patients with knee OA
and of those, conflicting results have been reported. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the differences in
gait kinematics (1) between male and female subjects with and without knee OA and (2) between healthy
gender-matched subjects as compared with their OA counterparts.
Methods: One hundred subjects with knee OA (45 males and 55 females) and 43 healthy subjects (18 males and 25
females) participated in this study. Three-dimensional kinematic data were collected during treadmill-walking and
analysed using (1) a traditional approach based on discrete variables and (2) a machine learning approach based on
principal component analysis (PCA) and support vector machine (SVM) using waveform data.
Results: OA and healthy females exhibited significantly greater knee abduction and hip adduction angles compared to
their male counterparts. No significant differences were found in any discrete gait kinematic variable between OA and
healthy subjects in either the male or female group. Using PCA and SVM approaches, classification accuracies of
98–100 % were found between gender groups as well as between OA groups.
Conclusions: These results suggest that care should be taken to account for gender when investigating the
biomechanical aetiology of knee OA and that gender-specific analysis and rehabilitation protocols should be
developed.
Refereed
Yes
Sponsorship
Funding for this research was provided by Alberta Innovates: Health
Solutions (AIHS) Team Osteoarthritis (grant no. 200700596) along with the
CIHR Fellowship (grant no. MFE-140882), the AIHS Postgraduate Fellowship
(grant no. 201400464), and the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Research
Allowance provided by the Office of the Vice-President (Research), the
University of Calgary. The funders had no role in the study design, collection,
analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in
the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.