The purpose of this thesis was to study the outcome of Single Event Multilevel Surgery (SEMLS) on the gait pattern known as crouch gait in children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy. The term “crouch gait” in the literature has been defined by many authors to mean a flexed knee coupled with many different combinations of posture at the ankle. Consequently it was necessary to provide a robust definition of crouch gait before the outcome study could proceed. Crouch gait was defined in the context of a classification of sagittal gait patterns in spastic diplegia. In the cross-sectional study on the classification of sagittal gait patterns, 187 children with spastic diplegia were categorised according to visual recognition of their gait pattern and sagittal plane kinematic data. Six gait patterns in spastic diplegia were identified, one of which was crouch gait. A pattern of increasing age, severity and biomechanical incompetency in maintaining an extended posture was seen across the gait patterns and crouch gait appeared to be the “end” gait pattern. A longitudinal study documented how the identified gait patterns evolved over time. Thirty-four children were followed for more than one year and the results indicated that the stability of the gait pattern was variable. The reliability of the classification was found to be acceptable. (For complete abstract open document)

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Ce travail présente deux nouveaux systèmes simples d'analyse de la marche humaine grâce à une caméra de profondeur (Microsoft Kinect) placée devant un sujet marchant sur un tapis roulant conventionnel, capables de détecter une marche saine et celle déficiente. Le premier système repose sur le fait qu'une marche normale présente typiquement un signal de profondeur lisse au niveau de chaque pixel avec moins de hautes fréquences, ce qui permet d'estimer une carte indiquant l'emplacement et l'amplitude de l'énergie de haute fréquence (HFSE). Le second système analyse les parties du corps qui ont un motif de mouvement irrégulier, en termes de périodicité, lors de la marche. Nous supposons que la marche d'un sujet sain présente partout dans le corps, pendant les cycles de marche, un signal de profondeur avec un motif périodique sans bruit. Nous estimons, à partir de la séquence vidéo de chaque sujet, une carte montrant les zones d'irrégularités de la marche (également appelées énergie de bruit apériodique). La carte avec HFSE ou celle visualisant l'énergie de bruit apériodique peut être utilisée comme un bon indicateur d'une éventuelle pathologie, dans un outil de diagnostic précoce, rapide et fiable, ou permettre de fournir des informations sur la présence et l'étendue de la maladie ou des problèmes (orthopédiques, musculaires ou neurologiques) du patient. Même si les cartes obtenues sont informatives et très discriminantes pour une classification visuelle directe, même pour un non-spécialiste, les systèmes proposés permettent de détecter automatiquement les individus en bonne santé et ceux avec des problèmes locomoteurs. / This work presents two new and simple human gait analysis systems based on a depth camera (Microsoft Kinect) placed in front of a subject walking on a conventional treadmill, capable of detecting a healthy gait from an impaired one. The first system presented relies on the fact that a normal walk typically exhibits a smooth motion (depth) signal, at each pixel with less high-frequency spectral energy content than an abnormal walk. This permits to estimate a map for that subject, showing the location and the amplitude of the high-frequency spectral energy (HFSE). The second system analyses the patient's body parts that have an irregular movement pattern, in terms of periodicity, during walking. Herein we assume that the gait of a healthy subject exhibits anywhere in the human body, during the walking cycles, a depth signal with a periodic pattern without noise. From each subject’s video sequence, we estimate a saliency color map showing the areas of strong gait irregularities also called aperiodic noise energy. Either the HFSE or aperiodic noise energy shown in the map can be used as a good indicator of possible pathology in an early, fast and reliable diagnostic tool or to provide information about the presence and extent of disease or (orthopedic, muscular or neurological) patient's problems. Even if the maps obtained are informative and highly discriminant for a direct visual classification, even for a non-specialist, the proposed systems allow us to automatically detect maps representing healthy individuals and those representing individuals with locomotor problems.