Patients with medial compartment knee osteoarthritis (OA) may exhibit different kinematics during walking according to the disease stage, also most of differences are in the frontal plane. The objective of this study was to compare lower extremity kinematics in frontal plane between medial knee OA patients and control subjects. Three dimensional gait analysis was performed on 25 women (35 to 53 years old): 10 control subjects, 10 mild medial knee OA and 5 moderate medial knee OA patients. Kinematics waveforms were reduced dimensionally by using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA scores were compared between three groups (control, mild OA and moderate OA) with ANOVA and Post-Hoc TukeyHSD statistical analysis. Ankle of mild OA patients had a leaning towards inversion and moderate OA patients had a leaning towards eversion. Patients with mild OA, had smaller range of ankle motion than two other groups (p>0.05). Knee adduction angle increased with progression of OA severity (p>0.05). Range of hip motion in frontal plane decreased with progression of OA severity and this difference was significant between mild and moderate OA groups (p=0.05).

Keywords: medial knee osteoarthritis, gait analysis, Principal component analysis (PCA), frontal plane, lower extremity kinematics

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