Gait Abnormalities in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease

I've noticed that the gait of some patients with peripheral arterial disease and claudication is abnormal even when they begin to walk (while they are still pain-free), but I never gave it much thought. To document how gait is impaired in these patients, researchers at the University of Nebraska performed advanced biomechanical gait analyses in 20 patients with bilateral intermittent claudication (mean ankle-brachial index, 0.58) and 16 controls, matched for sex, age, body mass, and height.

Compared with controls, patients with claudication had abnormalities in torque and power at the hip, knee, and ankle immediately upon walking (before onset of pain). Different combinations of muscle groups were affected in each of the three specific phase…