IDENTIFYING LOWER LIMBS MOVEMENT PATTERNS AND PHASES DURING GETTING-DOWN-TO-THE-FLOOR MOTION IN HEALTHY ADULTS USING A 2D MOTION ANALYSIS MOBILE APPLICATION

S.L. Kok¹, V. Hood-Moore¹

Background: Floor-sitting is a common culture in Asian and the Middle East countries. Floor-sitting positions such as cross-legged sitting on the floor or kneel-sitting are adopted during family meals in East Asian populations or during prayer among Buddhist and Muslim populations. Despite floor-sitting is a common and widespread position across large parts of the world especially in Asian and Middle East countries, there are limited biomechanical studies on getting-down-to-the-floor motion. There is no standardized method for capturing and measuring the motion of getting-down-to-the-floor, therefore there is no established kinematics and kinetics data of this motion. Without a biomechanical framework, there is no development of evidence-based training strategies to rehabilitate patients’ ability to get down to the floor. Thus, two-dimensional (2D) motion analysis mobile applications (apps) may have potential in capturing the movement patterns of the motion.

Purpose: We aimed to identify the movement patterns of the lower limbs during the motion of getting down to cross-legged sitting on the floor and determine the variability of the movement patterns and explore the feasibility of using a mobile app in capturing the motion.

Methods: A feasibility study with a cross-sectional observational study was employed. Using a tablet-based app, video recordings of 10 repetitions of getting-down-to-floor-motion of five healthy adults were taken and analysed retrospectively. Phases and movement patterns in the phases were identified by primary researcher using the playback and slow motion features in the app. 25 out of 50 video recordings of five participants were randomly selected to be reviewed and analysed for inter-rater reliability by two independent raters. The Cohen’s Kappa value was calculated to determine the level of agreement between the raters and the primary researcher and between the two raters. A research diary was kept to record the duration of data collection, data analysis and research process.

Results: Three phases were identified by the researcher: Pre-descent, Descent and Seated phases. There were 5 movement patterns in Pre-descent phase, 3 movement patterns in Descent phase and 3 movement patterns in Seated phase were identified respectively. Moderate (k-value=0.52) to almost perfect of agreement (k-value=1.00) was achieved between researcher and two raters on the phases and movement patterns were identified in the 25 video recordings in 5 participants. The average duration of video recording for each participant was 6.4 minutes. The average duration of video analysis of movement pattern in each trial was 3.0 minutes.

Conclusion(s): The motion analysis revealed 3 primary phases for this task, which has not been described elsewhere in the literature to date. 2D motion analysis app is feasible and reliable in capturing the movement patterns of lower limbs in getting-down-to-the-floor motion.

Implications: If the 2D motion analysis mobile app and the data collection and data analysis method are proved to be reliable and valid, a standardised protocol can be developed so that larger-scale study can be done to collect concise biomechanical data of getting-down-to-the-floor motion from different populations in future. Then it will benefit the development of evidence-based rehabilitation and training strategies for getting-down-to-the-floor motion.

Funding, acknowledgements: Funding Acknowledgements: The research was unfunded.

Keywords: Getting down to the floor motion, 2D motion analysis,, mobile application

Topic: Disability & rehabilitation

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of Nottingham

Committee: The Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty Medicine and Health Sciences

Ethics number: PT210317