When looking up some medical terms regarding crutch gait, I found a plethora of resources that detail the different ways how one can properly walk on crutches.
One of this ways is the so called "Two-Point Gait". In this "mode", the patient always advances the foot with the crutch on the opposite side of the body.
Have a look at this video for a demonstration: https://youtu.be/qjukAMe3qJE?t=27
Just in case the link goes dead, let me try to illustrate it with a simple drawing (x
foot with injury, >
other foot, |
crutch):
| | | |
x x x x
> > > >
| | | |
It does not really matter, but consider the walking direction from left to right.
Long story short, the question is:
Is there a special term for the walking pattern where a patient does the opposite of what is expected and basically puts foot and crutch of the same side forward at the same time?
Using the notation from above, that might look as follows:
| | | |
x x x x
> > > >
| | | |
I have heard some people (physiotherapists) refer to this as "Passgang" in German. According to my research, the direct translation is amble1,2, but the term seems to be primarily used for horses3 (or other animals with four legs) or as a term to describe relaxed walking3,4,5.
Edit:
Prior to asking this question, I studied the following resources:
- https://www.physio-pedia.com/Crutches
- https://walkeasy.com/explore/crutch-gaits.php
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElZkPye4WtA / https://www.registerednursern.com/crutches-nursing-nclex-review/
@MichaelHarvey, added https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-walk-safely-with-crutches-2696295 to the list. Thanks for that!
All these sites describe how to use crutches in various modes, but none of them matches what I'm looking for. My best guess would be, that what I'm looking for is an error on the patient's side, i.e. you would not want the patient to walk like this.
1 https://www.linguee.com/german-english/translation/Passgang.html
2 https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/deutsch-englisch/passgang
3 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amble
4 https://www.lexico.com/definition/amble
5 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/amble