Walk Smarter, Not Harder: Effects of Cadence Manipulation on Gait Biomechanics in Patients with Patellofemoral Osteoarthritis

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the effect of walking cadence on knee flexion angular impulse and peak external flexion moment in patients with patellofemoral osteoarthritis (OA).MethodsForty-eight patients with patellofemoral OA underwent repeated quantitative gait analyses on an instrumented treadmill using a randomized crossover design. Walking trials were conducted at a fixed gait speed, under three cadence conditions: (i) preferred cadence, (ii) +10% increased cadence, and (iii) -10% decreased cadence, completed in random order. Using a linear mixed model, we tested the association of cadence conditions with surrogate measures of patellofemoral load (primary outcome measure: knee flexion angular impulse) while controlling for body mass. We then repeated the analyses while sequentially replacing the dependent variable with secondary outcome measures.ResultsWalking with increased cadence decreased (adjusted mean difference [95% confidence interval]) the knee flexion angular impulse (-0.85 N center dot m center dot s(-1) [-1.52 to -0.18], d = 0.20) and peak knee flexion moment (-4.11 N center dot m [-7.35 to -0.86], d = 0.24), whereas walking with decreased cadence increased the knee flexion angular impulse (1.83 N center dot m center dot s(-1) [1.15 to 2.49], d = 0.42) and peak knee flexion moment (3.55 N center dot m [0.30 to 6.78], d = 0.21). Similar decreases and increases were observed for secondary outcome measures.ConclusionsWalking with increased cadence, while maintaining a fixed gait speed, reduces knee flexion angular impulse as well as other surrogate measures of knee loading in patients with patellofemoral OA.