GAIT AND LONG CANE KINEMATICS - A COMPARISON OF SIGHTED AND VISUALLY-IMPAIRED SUBJECTS

Although visually impaired individuals have used the long cane to incr ease mobility for many years, few empirical studies have examined the effectiveness oi this tool. The purposes oi this research were to dete rmine ii these cane procedures provide adequate protection for visuall y impaired individuals and to compare sighted and visually impaired ga it mechanics. Seven sighted (four females, three males) and live visua lly impaired subjects (two females, three males) were videotaped at 60 Hz by two cameras situated at opposite 45 degrees angles to the subje cts' frontal plane so that three-dimensional coordinates could be calc ulated via direct linear transformation. One-way analyses oi variance were calculated on 17 variables to determine ii there was a significan t biomechanical difference between sighted and visually impaired gait al an adjusted alpha = .003. The results showed that for both groups t he cane tip touched outside where the loot landed and that the only va riable significantly different between the two groups was resultant ca ne velocity. The major conclusion of this research was that present ca ne techniques may not provide adequate protection for visually impaire d individuals since the purpose oi mobility training is to have the pe rson touch the ground with the cane tip at the loot contact positions.