Use of adult anthropometric tables to estimate children body segment inertial parameters.

Abstract

There is a lack of knowledge in the literature concerning Body Segment Inertial Parameters (BSIP) for children aged 4 to 15 years. Nevertheless, these data are fundamental for studying the dynamics of the healthy and pathological musculoskeletal system. One common method for obtaining BSIP is to use regression equations derived from anthropometric tables. However, the majority of these equations are based on adult data. In this study, we compared certain BSIP (segment mass, center of mass position, and transverse moment of inertia) derived from adult anthropometric tables with the corresponding BSIP extracted from a pediatric anthropometric table. The goal of this study was to determine the accuracy of using adult anthropometric tables to calculate pediatric BSIP. For this comparison, we assessed the proximity of several adult anthropometric tables to a pediatric anthropometric table by Jensen (1986) for each BSIP. Our results revealed differences between the BSIP obtained using adult tables and the BSIP obtained with the pediatric table used as a reference. When considering all the tables, the mean relative difference was 12% for segment mass, 12% for center of mass position, and 25% for transverse moment of inertia. Notably, the greatest relative differences were observed for the head, hand, and foot segments. Additionally, the relative difference in female data was higher compared to males. This result could be attributed to the predominant use of male subjects in the adult tables considered in this study. Finally, the adult anthropometric tables by Dumas and Wojtsuch (2018) and De Leva (1996) provided results that were closer in comparison to Jensen (1986).