walk Archives - Jineral Knowledge

Let’s imagine that you are walking outside, when rain clouds catch you by surprise and suddenly pour down on you. Assuming that you have no umbrella or anything to cover yourself with, is it best to run back home or walk back? Or to elaborate, should you walk and spend more time in the rain, or should you run, which means you will run into rain sideways?

There are two ways you can get wet in the rain: it will either fall on top of your head, or you will run into it from the side. The amount of rain that falls on your head is constant whether you are walking or raining, as the entire field you are travelling through is full of raindrops. Therefore, one would naturally think that running would not add much benefit as you run into more rain by moving faster, as you essentially hit a wall of raindrops.

But this is not true. No matter how fast you travel, the amount of rain you hit sideways is constant. The only variable that affects the amount of rain you hit sideways is the distance you travel. This is because the amount of raindrops in the space between you and your destination is constant.

Summarising this, the wetness from rain you receive is:

(wetness falling on your head per second x time spent in rain) + (wetness you run into per meter x distance travelled).

Since you cannot really change how far you are from your destination, the best way to minimise getting wet is to run as fast as you can to minimise the time you spend in the rain.

Then again, this is only the most practical option to keep you dry. If you are feeling particularly romantic or blue, then feel free to stroll through the rain, savouring the cold drops on your face (or wallow in the sadness that is your life).

(Here’s a very good video explaining the maths/science of it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MqYE2UuN24)

In medicine, a person’s way of walking is termed gait. By analysing a person’s gait, a trained professional can gain insight into what pathologies the person may be suffering from. For example, just from the way the patient limps, the doctor may discover that the patient has an incurable degenerative brain disease.

The most common gait abnormality is the antalgic gait, or limping due to pain. Most people would have experienced the difficulty of walking with a sprained or broken ankle, muscle ache or knee problems. This is easy to spot as the patient quickly switches to the other feet when leaning on the affected leg due to the pain. Therefore, the side that stays on the ground less than the other is the affected leg.

Sometimes, you can see a person “waddling” along as they swing from one side to the other. This may be a waddling gait, also known as Trendelenburg’s gait, caused by a weakness in the hip muscles that support the pelvic girdle, either due to muscle or nerve damage. As the patient cannot support their weight on the affected side, their pelvis tilts towards the opposite side. To avoid falling over, the patient lurches their body towards the other side, causing them to waddle. Looking at the tilt and lurch gives insight into what side is affected.
Another rather common gait is the steppage gait, where the person lifts one leg higher than the other, while their foot drags on the ground. This is caused by nerve damage leading to the loss of ability to lift the foot up (termed foot drop).

As the brain controls the motor system, damage to the brain also leads to motor dysfunction. A common example is a stroke.
If the stroke damages a significant part of the motor cortex, the patient suffers from hemiparesis/hemiplegia, or weakness/paralysis of one half of the body. This causes the limbs on the affected side to stiffen, as seen by an extended leg pointing inwards and retracted arm. The patient has to swing the affected leg around while they walk as they cannot flex the hip, known as a hemiplegic gait.
If the cerebellum is damaged, balancing becomes an issue. This causes the patient to suffer from ataxia, where they cannot coordinate their movements and are prone to toppling over. These patients tend to sway violently from side to side as they try to walk in a straight line.

Lastly, degenerative brain diseases can also affect gait. There are two main examples.
In Parkinson’s disease, the patient suffers from what is called hypokinesia and bradykinesia – reduced and slow movement. This leads to a shuffling gait where the patient walks slowly by shuffling their feet in small steps. They are also stooped over and are often seen with a pill-rolling tremor of their hands – a cardinal symptom of the disease.
In Huntington’s chorea, the opposite (hyperkinesia) occurs. This causes flailing as the muscles contract in an uncoordinated manner, including both the arms and legs. Ergo, their gait is quite jerky and interrupted by bouts of flailing, termed choreiform gait, but their balance is fine so walking in a straight line is still possible.

Knowledge of these disorders may help one appreciate the suffering a patient walking along the street has to undergo everyday of their life.

(Video demonstrations: http://stanford25.wordpress.com/gait-abnormalities/)