Effect of Foot Orthoses on the Timing of Lower Limb Muscles Activity during Walking in Older Adults

Introduction: As a person gets older, their gait patterns change and their ability to walk decreases. Orthoses are used to relieve musculoskeletal disorders, skeletal problems, disabilities, etc. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of orthoses on timing of lower limb muscles in the older adults during gait. Methods: The present study was a clinical trial. 14 females (with average age of 60.50±4.40 years) and 14 males (with average age of 63.35±5.55 years) were selected with available sampling, voluntarily participated in this research. Eight electrodes were placed on the selected muscles (tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius medial, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris, semitendinosus, gluteus medius, erector spinae) to record electrical activity during the gait with and without orthoses. To analyze the data SPSS software (version 16), and a repeated analysis of variance test was used. The significance levels in all tests were considered to be 0.05. Results: The main effects of orthoses and the interaction effects of orthoses and sex for the onset of selected muscles activities did not show any significant differences (P>0.05). The effect of sex for the onset of activities in medial gastrocnemius (P=0.007), vastus medialis (P=0.002), vastus lateralis (P=0.027), semitendinosus (P=0.004), gluteus medius (P=0.030), and erector spinae (P=0.039) muscles was significant, so that the onset of muscle activity in the female group was earlier than in the male group. Conclusion: Orthoses showed no improvement on onset of selected muscles activities, although significant differences were observed between the male and female groups.