Pathophysiology of Gait Disturbance in Neurologic Disorders and Clinical Presentations

Ambulation requires significant motor coordination. Because of inherent differences in body proportions, level of coordination, motivation, and other factors, each individual gait pattern is unique. However, despite the existence of these individual differences that contribute to each person's own unique walking style, there are highly repeatable gait sequences, allowing characterization of normal gait patterns and identification of gait disturbance. This article briefly reviews neural control of human ambulation, basic kinematics, and kinetics of normal human gait, and describes the pathophysiology and clinical presentations of spastic hemiparetic and paraparetic, ataxic, and Parkinsonian gait patterns.