Posture and gait assessment: Experimental evidence and clinical implications in rehabilitation

This doctoral thesis investigates posture and gait as key aspects of human motor control, examining how they change in healthy people and in patients with neurological or musculoskeletal conditions. Across five independent studies, it combines clinical assessment tools, laboratory-based systems and wearable technologies to evaluate motor function with precision and contextual adaptability. The research addresses the following: (1) the interaction between upright stance, visual input and cognitive performance in elderly adults and patients with Parkinson's disease, revealing distinct patterns of attentional resource allocation; (2) the relationship between plantar pressure distribution during quiet stance and gait, clarifying their biomechanical divergence and clinical interpretability; (3) postural control strategies in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis, providing preliminary evidence of altered sensory integration; (4) methodological considerations in gait analysis for patients with spinal cord injuries, highlighting variability in parameters and instrumentation across the literature; and (5) the clinical value of mobility metrics in patients with Parkinson's disease, identifying markers that predict fall risk and functional decline in real-world settings. Together, these studies emphasise the importance of quantitative motor assessment in rehabilitation. By integrating experimental protocols with technological tools, the thesis advance’s objective, reproducible and sensitive methods for characterising motor function. The findings support the use of multimodal gait and posture analysis to inform personalised rehabilitation strategies, refine diagnostic accuracy and track disease progression or therapeutic outcomes across diverse patient populations.