Comparison of gait with and without shoes in children.

Full body gait analysis was used to determine if differences exist in kinematic, kinetic, and temporal-spatial data with and without shoes in able-bodied children. The greatest difference noted between conditions was an increase in stride length with shoes. Minimal changes were seen in kinematics and kinetics with the addition of shoes. Due to the very tight standard deviations of the data, these minimal changes in the magnitude of the curves resulted in statistically significant differences, yet these changes do not appear to be clinically significant. It is believed that this study establishes that barefoot gait analysis is sufficient for most clinical studies, and an additional assessment undertaken while wearing shoes is not necessary.