Summary: English
The World Health Organization warns that, in 2000, as many as 33 million Europeans suffered from diabetes, approximately 15% will likely develop foot ulcers, and approximately 15% to 20% of these patients will face lower-extremity amputation. In 2004, an estimated 3.4 million people died from consequences of high blood sugar. Diabetic neuropathy is the most common chronic complication associated with diabetes mellitus, affecting 20–50% of diabetic patients 10 years after their diagnosis. Peripheral neuropathy and peripheral arterial disease are the most common and invalidating diabetes’s complications, involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic foot. They account for the leading cause of non-traumatic lower limb amputations. It results from two factors. The first one is a reduced blow of blood in the inferior limbs, caused from the presence of obliterating peripheral arteriopathy disease. The second is the progressive laceration of nervous fibers (neuropathy) that cause a reduction of the sensitivity (also to the pain) and of the ability of movement, and that helps the appearance of lesions. Together with diabetes falls in older adults are a big public health concern and have provided much of the motivation for research into age-related changes in human gait. Tripping during walking is the predominant cause of falls not only in the elderly but also in the neuropathic subjects. Trips can occur during walking on a level ground, but also during crossing visible obstacle, stair ascending and descending. The social and economic weight of the diabetic foot and the tragic consequences that brings with it can be reduced through a prompt diagnosis and treatment from the very beginning. The aim of this thesis, was to evaluate differences in gait parameters, in performing stair ascending and descending task and evaluation of muscle fatigue during treadmill protocol in diabetes subjects with and without complications, in order to provide a further tool for early diagnosis which allows clinicians to change, if is necessary, or only to control, as soon as possible, the follow-up of patients according to their specific characteristics
