We examined sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) and micronuclei (MN; cytokinesis-block method) in cultured peripheral lymphocytes from 52 female workers of two shoe factories and from 36 unexposed age- and sex-matched referents. The factory workers showed an elevated level of urinary hippuric acid, a biomarker of toluene exposure, and workplace air contained high concentrations of various organic...

To date it has been thought that shoe midsole hardness does not affect vertical impact peak forces during running. This conclusion is based partially on results from experimental data using homogeneous samples of participants that found no difference in vertical impact peaks when running in shoes with different midsole properties. However, it is currently unknown how apparent joint stiffness is...

Objective: To study whether conservative correction in a eg-length discrepancy (LLD) of 10mm or less in patients with hronic low back pain (CLBP) can relieve pain. Design: Randomized, controlled intervention study, with a ean follow-up duration of 10 weeks. Setting: Physical therapy clinic of the national health ervices. Participants: Thirty-three patients with CLBP were creened for an LLD of 1...

Previous studies investigating the effects of shoe midsole hardness on running kinematics have often used male subjects from within a narrow age range. It is unknown whether shoe midsole hardness has the same kinematic effect on male and female runners as well as runners from different age categories. As sex and age have an effect on running kinematics, it is important to understand if shoe mid...

BACKGROUND Midfoot osteoarthritis (OA) is more prevalent and strongly associated with pain than previously thought. Excessive mechanical loading of the midfoot structures may contribute to midfoot OA and studies suggest that functional foot orthoses (FFO) may relieve pain through improving function. This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the mechanical effect of two off-the-shelf FFOs, compar...

With enormous amounts of information injected into the Internet every second, manual maintenance of the knowledge base on the Internet is a hopeless task. A reasonable remedy for this problem is to create a “machine understandable” Internet. To achieve this, Heflin et al. proposed an HTML-based knowledge representation language called Simple HTML Ontology Extension (SHOE). SHOE can be used in m...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of shoe design on the plantar pressure dynamics of patients with diabetic neuropathy during walking. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Three shoe design categories were tested. Total contact area and biomechanical variables in multiple areas under the foot were measured. RESULTS Shoes with a rocker bottom principle reduced pressure 35-...

Background Court shoe designs predominantly focus on reducing excessive vertical ground reaction force, but shear force cushioning has received little attention in the basketball population. We aimed to examine the effect of a novel shoe-cushioning design on both resultant horizontal ground reaction forces and comfort perception during two basketball-specific cutting movements. Methods Fiftee...

INTRODUCTION Arthrodesis of the ankle is an established operation. The lack of normal ankle movement after ankle arthrodesis reduced the ability of the patients to walk smoothly on the arthrodesis foot. It would have a more profound effect in negotiating stairs, because large ranges of dorsiflexion and plantarflexion are required to accomplish this activity. Although gait characteristics have b...

AIM The first aim of this study was to assess how changes in the mechanical characteristics of the foot/shoe-ground interface affect spatio-temporal variables, ground pressure distribution, sagittal plane kinematics, and running economy in 8 experienced barefoot runners. The second aim was to assess if a special lightweight shoe (Vibram Fivefingers) was effective in mimic the experience of bare...