Reappraisal of gait patterns in minimally impaired Multiple Sclerosis patients reveals characteristic foot shuffling sounds

Abstract

Heller et al.(2013) state that in multiple sclerosis patients, inversion of the foot at terminal swing is insufficiently corrected. However, it is the inversion of the foot at the end of the stance phase that is insufficiently corrected because of poor eversion of the foot in the early swing phase, which results in early ground contact of the outside border of the still partially inverted foot in the terminal swing phase. In minimally impaired multiple sclerosis patients walking on a treadmill, this leads to the producing of characteristic high-pitched shuffling sounds, generated in fact by a temporary friction of the outside border of the shod foot-in-terminal-swing, along the surface of the treadmill belt.