Resource type: Original research — gait-analysis protocol

Publication

Elif Surer; Andrea Cereatti; Maria Antonietta Evangelisti; Gabriele Paolini; Ugo Della Croce; Maria Lucia Manunta (2020). A Canine Gait Analysis Protocol for Back Movement Assessment in German Shepherd Dogs. Veterinary Sciences, 7(1), article 26. DOI: 10.3390/vetsci7010026

Published online: 19 February 2020.

Reading note: The protocol was evaluated in eight clinically healthy adult German Shepherd dogs; the abstract describes preliminary normative data, not validation across all breeds or clinical conditions.

Author abstract

The following is the authors’ abstract, not a site-written summary. Wording is retained; paragraph structure and inline typography are formatted for this page.

Objective—To design and test a motion analysis protocol for the gait analysis of adult German Shepherd (GS) dogs with a focus in the analyses of their back movements. Animals—Eight clinically healthy adult large-sized GS dogs (age, 4 ± 1.3 years; weight, 38.8 ± 4.2 kg). Procedures—A six-camera stereo-photogrammetric system and two force platforms were used for data acquisition. Experimental acquisition sessions consisted of static and gait trials. During gait trials, each dog walked along a 6 m long walkway at self-selected speed and a total of six gait cycles were recorded. Results—Grand mean and standard deviation of ground reaction forces of fore and hind limbs are reported. Spatial-temporal parameters averaged over gait cycles and subjects, their mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance are analyzed. Joint kinematics for the hip, stifle and tarsal joints and their average range of motion (ROM) values, and their 95% Confidence Interval (CI) values of kinematics curves are reported. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—This study provides normative data of healthy GS dogs to form a preliminary basis in the analysis of the spatial-temporal parameters, kinematics and kinetics during quadrupedal stance posture and gait. Also, a new back movement protocol enabling a multi-segment back model is provided. Results show that the proposed gait analysis protocol may become a useful and objective tool for the evaluation of canine treatment with special focus on the back movement.

Source and attribution

© 2020 by the authors. Reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). The researchers named above are the publication authors; this site provides the resource presentation.

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