JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

A distal radius fracture (DRF) is a common initial fragility fracture among early postmenopausal women, associated with an increased risk of subsequent fractures. Gait assessments are valuable for evaluating fracture risk; among them, inertial measurement units (IMUs) have been widely used to assess the gait under free-living conditions recently. However, little is known about long-term changes in patients with DRF, especially concerning daily-life gait. We hypothesized that, in the long term, the daily-life gait parameters in patients with DRF could enable us to reveal future risk factors for falls and fractures.

Objective:

This study assessed the spatiotemporal characteristics of patients with DRF at four weeks and six months of recovery.

Methods:

We recruited 16 postmenopausal women with DRF as their first fragility fracture (62.3 years) and 28 matched healthy controls (65.6 years). Daily-life gait assessments and physical assessments such as hand grip strength (HGS) were performed using an in-shoe IMU sensor. Participants’ results were compared with those of the control group, and their recovery was assessed over six months after the fracture.

Results:

In the fracture group, at four weeks after DRF, a lower dorsiflexion angle, lower foot height in the swing phase, and higher variability of stride length were observed; those except for dorsiflexion angle improved gradually. As for the physical assessments, the fracture group showed lower HGS at all the time points, despite significant improvement at six months.

Conclusions:

Due to an in-shoe IMU sensor, we revealed the recovery of spatiotemporal gait characteristics six months after DRF surgery without participants’ awareness. The consistently decreased dorsiflexion angle in the swing phase and HGS could be associated with fracture risk, implying the high clinical importance of appropriate intervention for patients with DRF to prevent future fractures. These results could be applied to a screening tool for evaluating the risk of falls and fractures, which may contribute to constructing a new healthcare system using wearable devices in the near future.