Biomechanical Analysis of Human Stair Climbing (Ascending and Descending)

Abstract

Because stair climbing is a common activity of daily living, the ability to do it e fficiently is important to an individual' s quality of life. More demanding than leve l walking, stair ambulation is performe d with ease by he althy individuals; however, it is more difficult to perform for those with decrements in motor function, balance problems, or reduced lower-limb function. The difficulty with stair climbing is attributable to increased muscular demands, which are refle cted in large r forces, angles, powers, moments, and ranges of motion, and these increased demands occur c onsistently at the knee joint. Kinematic sy stem is used in stair climbing to record the position and orientation of the body segments, the angles of the joints and the corresponding linear and angular velocities and acceleration. The purpose of the study is to show an ide al kinematics appe arance of human gait cy cle for stair climbing in order to ge t measurement values that can be depende d on in the hospitals of rehabilitation, the centers of phy sical therapy and the clinical of medical sports as a reference data for kinematic joint parameter. In this study , 5 subjects were selected from the soc ie ty , then a video re cording was made for them by using a single digital vide o camera rec order fitted on a stand of three legs in a sagittal plane while subjects climbing a stair one by one for different stair he ights. Motion analy sis was use d to study the kne e and hip joint kinematics. As a result, it was observe d that the range of motion at the hip joint is between (10°-70°) at asce nding and the range is between (20°-50°) at descending. The range of motion at the knee joint is between (20°-90°) at ascending and the range is between (10°-100°) at de scending. The range of motion at the ankle joint is between (-25°-20°) at asc ending and the range is between (-25°-15°) at descending. Also it was found that the angular velocity at the hip joint is between (-10-10) deg/s for ascending and (-15-25) deg/s for descending. The angular ve locity at the knee joint is between (-40-30) deg/s for asc ending and (-30-50) deg/s for descending. The angular velocity at the ankle joint is between (-30-20) deg/s for asc ending and (-15-15) deg/s for descending. In this study , biomechanical characteristics of lower limb joint upon various stair he ight were prese nted and these data can be applied to biomedical re search field that include we arable walking assistant robot.