ABSTRACT
Total hip replacement arthroplasty ( THA ) is a useful treatment method in the patients with avascular necrosis ( AVN ) or degenerative arthritis ( DA ) to relieve pain and recovery of function. Beside pain relief , patients want improvement in gait pattern , which is related with Jeg length discrepancy, range of motion, and muscle power. It could be difficult to analyse the cause of limp accuratelv by the clini-cal observation. Therefore gait analysis will he a good tool for the identification of the factors related to the recovery of patients after the operation. This study was undertaken in an attempt to evaluate the gait characteristics of 16 patients with unilateral hip disease treated with THA. We compared the outcome of qualitative and quantitative analysis of gait and also compared with those of 14 healthy person. The results were as followed : 1. The patients showed short single support time on their painful limb prior to THA , but postoperatively , it was increased to near normal (p<0.05). 2. Preoperatively, the range of hip flexion of the sound side was increased more than those of the normal control and the painful limh. After the THA, it returned to the near normal (p<0.05~). The hip extension of the painful limh uas increased postoperatively (P<0.05) but still it was lower than normai subject. The hip ahduction and internal roiation of sound side was also increased to near normal after THA. In conclusion, great improvement ot the gait characteristics in patients with hip disease after THA was found and this gait improvement can he analyzed quantitatively hy gait analysis.