This paper investigates a method for
characterising the symmetric status of gait and the
inter and intra-limb relationship of gait control.
Previous research shows fluctuations of intra-limb
stride intervals to have long-range correlations
indicating scale-free (fractal like) phenomena. The
presence of this phenomena in gait, and a method
for its identification (detrended fluctuation
analysis) provides a new approach to gait analysis.
A single, healthy young adult subject, completed a
thirty-minute treadmill test. Minimum foot
clearance values and the time interval between
their occurrences were taken at these successive
bilateral events. Using detrended fluctuation
analysis, we computed α(self-similarity
parameter), a measure of the degree to which a
single value in a series of data is correlated with a
previous and subsequent value over different time
scales. The results demonstrate long-range
correlations of intra-limb spatial and temporal
parameters in both limbs. The computed selfsimilarity
parameter (a) indicates a symmetric
relationship between limbs for temporal processes
of gait. However, a similar computation and
comparison for spatial processes of gait reveal an
asymmetric relationship. The inter-limb spatial
relationship demonstrates long-range correlations.
The investigation demonstrates a new method for
classifying gait symmetry and has implications for
furthering knowledge on the coordination
processes of gait control.