Gait Analysis
At Lokahi Healthcare, we’re dedicated to helping you move better and feel better. Our gait analysis offers a detailed look at how you walk or run, empowering you with the tools and strategies to move with ease, confidence and vitality.
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What is Gait Analysis?
Gait analysis is a comprehensive assessment of the way you walk or run. We examine your movement patterns, joint alignment, muscle activity and overall biomechanics to identify inefficiencies or suboptimal patterns. Your gait is unique to you and small changes in how you move can lead to discomfort, pain or injury over time. Gait analysis helps identify these issues and offers solutions to optimise your movement for health and performance.
What Are the Benefits?
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Identifies the Root Cause of Pain: Whether it’s knee discomfort, back pain or foot problems, gait analysis uncovers how your walking or running patterns contribute to your symptoms.
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Prevents Injuries: By addressing gait imbalances, it will help reduce strain on muscles, joints and ligaments, minimising injury risk.
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Improves Mobility: Correcting gait issues can make walking and running feel more natural and comfortable.
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Boosts Performance: For athletes, optimising gait mechanics can enhance speed, efficiency and endurance.
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Supports Rehabilitation: After injury or surgery, gait analysis is key to restoring normal, pain-free movement.
What Does It Involve?
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Observation and Assessment: Our physiotherapist begins by carefully observing how you walk or run in your natural state. This includes analysing your stride length, posture, weight distribution, and how your feet make contact with the ground. We look for irregularities, such as favouring one side, unusual joint angles, or imbalances. This visual observation sets the foundation for a deeper understanding of your gait mechanics.
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Video Analysis: We record your walking or running pattern from multiple angles. This allows us to slow down and review each phase of your movement, capturing nuances such as foot strike, knee alignment, pelvic alignment, hip mobility and trunk posture. These insights often reveal issues that are not visible during live observation.
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Functional Testing: Beyond walking or running, we assess key factors influencing your gait. This includes tests for joint mobility, muscle strength, flexibility, and balance. For example, we might evaluate how well your hips stabilise during movement or how your core supports your posture.
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Personalised Insights: After the assessments, we sit down with you to explain our findings in simple, relatable terms. Using visual aids like video stills or annotated reports, we help you understand what’s happening in your body and why it matters. Based on the analysis, we provide clear and actionable advice. This could include strengthening or flexibility exercises, gait retraining techniques and/or footwear recommendations. We aim to create a plan that fits seamlessly into your lifestyle and supports your movement goals.​
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If you'd like your gait to be analysed, connect with us!