Analysis on Foot Measurements of Elderly Women for Ergonomic Shoes Design

This study was designed to figure out the changes in elderly women's foot size and shape by aging, to propose size specification for elderly women's shoes, and to produce regression equations using representative measurements items to estimate other measurements usually hard to get. Subjects were 118 women of 30-59 years and the 227 elderly women over 60 years. Martin's anthropometry was done on the right foot of each subject for 25 items. And 11 indirect measurement items were measured on both foot printing sole outline and picture in profile taken by digital camera. For statistical analysis on the anthropometric measurements by SPSS program, analysis of variance, post-hoc test(SNK-test), crosstabulation, multiple correlation analysis, regression analysis were performed. The results of the study are as follows. Firstly, it was found that the foot figures of elderly women over 60 years were smaller in girth and width than those of below 60 years. In addition, it was revealed that a big toe and a little toe of elderly women showed a tendency concentrating to the central axis of feet. The foot index of elderly was smaller in width and girth. Secondly, foot size distribution table of elderly group showed wider size ranges and covered smaller sizes than the below the age of 60, meaning wide variation in foot size of elderly women. Thirdly, the multiple correlation analysis showed high correlation of foot length/girth to other measurements, suggesting these two items could be used as representative items for elderly women's shoe size specification as other age groups. Regression equations were produced using foot length/girth to estimate other measurements, suggesting such items could be estimated effectively and utilized in on/off-line shoe manufacturing shop as heel to big toe length, heel to little toe length, exterior malleouls width, instep girth, ankle girth, etc. These results imply prudent features of elderly women's foot as diversity of foot shape and wide size specification range should be applied for ergonomic shoe design for them.

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