Comparison of gait with and without shoes in children

Full body gait analysis was used to determine if differences exist in kinem atic, kinetic, and temporal-spatial data with and without shoes in able-bod ied children. The greatest difference noted between conditions was an incre ase in stride length with shoes. Minimal changes were seen in kinematics an d kinetics with the addition of shoes. Due to the very tight standard devia tions of the data, these minimal changes in the magnitude of the curves res ulted in statistically significant differences, yet these changes do not ap pear to be clinically significant. It is believed that this study establish es that barefoot gait analysis is sufficient for most clinical studies, and an additional assessment undertaken while wearing shoes is not necessary. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.