The effects of different high heeled shoes during gait at the kinetic and kinematic impact

High-heeled shoes have become a component of fashion trends for women in various attempts. Previous studies have shown that prolonged wearing of high-heeled shoes can contribute to the impairments in body alignment which results in several musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteophyte. This will eventually affect the gait patterns in terms of vertical ground reaction force, step length, stride length and cadence. Therefore, it is important to understand the impacts of different high heels on female during walking. The objective of this study is to determine the effects of different high-heeled shoes on biomechanical performance of young female adult during walking and to analyze the changes of kinetic and kinematic data associated with the effects of high-heeled shoes wearing. In this study, 12 subjects had been recruited to perform the gait analysis. Result shows that as the heel height increased, the vertical ground reaction force and cadence are significantly increased as compared with barefoot, while step length and stride length are significantly decreased. The vertical ground reaction force and knee joint moment of wide heel were increased as compared with narrow heel of same heel height, while cadence, step length and stride length were decreased. No significant difference on vertical ground reaction force, knee joint moment, step length and cadence were found between wide heel versus narrow heel. Besides, large knee joint moment is resulted by higher heels and is significantly increased when compared with 2 inch heel and in turn may increase the risk of getting musculoskeletal disease. Therefore, women are encouraged to minimize putting on high heels particularly the 4 inch high-heeled shoes.