Validity and reliability of a kinematic protocol for determining foot contact events

Timing of foot contact events provides important information for gait studies. The aim of the study is to validate the use of kinematic data, collected at 50 Hz to define foot contact events during gait initiation. Simultaneous kinetic and kinematic data recordings of four discrete foot contact events were made for normal adults. Raters were asked to estimate the timing of the events from kinematic data curves and these timings were compared with those derived from the kinetic data. For the four events, between 88 and 98% of all ratings were accurate to within 0.03 s. Inter-rater reliability was extremely high, reflecting the precision of the definitions used.