Minimum foot clearance during walking: Strategies for the minimisation of trip-related falls

This paper models minimum foot clearance (MFC) data during steady-state gait to investigate how the various descriptive statistics of the MFC distribution differ in healthy young and elderly females. A minimum of 20 min of treadmill walking was analysed for 17 young and 16 elderly females using a Peak Motus motion analysis system. The results indicated that none of the 33 participants’ MFC data sets were Normally distributed. The deviation from a Normal distribution was systematic (always skewness > 0 and kurtosis > 0). Skewness and kurtosis in MFC data was highly correlated (young: r = 0.60, p = 0.01; elderly: r = 0.95, p < 0.01). MFC descriptive statistics provide useful information about basic strategies used by individuals to minimize the likelihood of tripping. Possible strategies to minimize tripping include: (a) increasing MFC height central tendency, (b) reducing MFC variability, and/or (c) increasing right skewness. A low median MFC was often associated with a low IQR or high skewness to compensate. Further research is required to establish how, or if at all, these strategies are modified in populations that are more at risk of falling.