PURPOSE Children with cerebral palsy (CP) often use a crouch gait pattern that has disturbances in the knee joint kinematics. Although the length and rate of lengthening of the hamstring musculature have been speculated to be the reason that these disturbances are not adequately dissipated, this relationship has not been adequately explored. The purpose of this exploratory investigation was to ...

Recent advances in computational technology have dramatically increased the use of muscle-driven simulation to study accelerations produced by muscles during gait. Accelerations computed from muscle-driven simulations are sensitive to the model used to represent contact between the foot and ground. A foot-ground contact model must be able to calculate ground reaction forces and moments that are...

The popliteal angle is a widely used clinical means of assessing hamstring length in cerebral palsy patients. The relevance of the popliteal angle as a measure of hamstring length was assessed in this prospective study. Sixteen patients with cerebral palsy with crouch gait had their conventional and modified popliteal angles measured by nine observers on two separate occasions. With use of the ...

INTRODUCTION: Children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) often develop hamstring contractures, however, the mechanism of contracture formation is not known. Contractures represent a resistance of muscle to increased length. The structural elements responsible for this increased stiffness are also not known [1]. Previous work showed that single fibers from “contractured” muscle tissue has increas...

Crouch start technique is the most important factor in Sprint starting. For achieving the best starting moves fitting biomechanical characteristics of the human body, it is necessary to take comparative analysis on crouch start in biomechanics in order to obtain the fastest initial velocity through quick and timely departure from the quiescent state. In this paper carries on the sport biomechan...

i Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all the people who helped me during this thesis work. Firstly I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Carolyn J. Crouch for her invaluable guidance, timely advice and support. I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Donald B. Crouch and Dr. Todd W. Loushine for their suggestions and feedback during the important stages...

Children with crouch gait frequently walk with improved knee extension during the terminal swing and stance phases following hamstrings lengthening surgery; however, the mechanisms responsible for these improvements are unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that surgical lengthening enables the hamstrings of persons with cerebral palsy to operate at longer muscle-tendon lengths or lengthen ...