Simulación de la presión plantar en adultos Mayoresm

Abstract

Understanding the plantar pressure behavior on elderly’s and the factors that had influence on it is of interest to several researchers due to the accelerated growth in the age of the global population and the consequences that this behavior involves. In this work, a 3D simulation of the human foot was performed during the gait using the finite element method. For this study were used data from several older adults, the national average of older adults and a young individual adult that was used as a control subject. Peak pressure and contact area were obtained, finding that there are intrinsic parameters that modify the plantar footprint in an older adult, such as weight and height, greater weight means higher peak pressure, and higher height mean smaller contact region. Men have more contact area during gait than women, while young people have a higher peak pressure than the rest of the population. This investigation found values of mean peak pressure in the elderly population; the results were 7.325 ± 3.97 psi in the heel support phase, 14.25 ± 1.60 psi in the load transfer phase and 16 ± 7 psi, 77 psi in the heel take-off phase.