• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.37-48
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• 1997

It is very common for women wear shoes with a high heel. It has been known that the high heel could disfigure the foot shape and cause various joint problems including back pain. However, few quantitative studies have been conducted. Therefore, in this study, the low back muscle has been investigated in order to find fatifue effect due to different heights of the heel. In particular, 0, 4, 6 and 8cm heel and two different shapes of heel have been used for an experiment. Ten healthy female subjects volunteered for the study. Isometric Trunk Exertion Frame(ITEF) and Electromyography were used to measure tha Median Frequency via Spectral analysis. The results indicated that the heel height significantly affected the local muscle fatigue of the back. After post hoc analysis, it was found that a proper heel height ougth to be lower than 5cm not to have severely fatigued back muscle after a casual walk for an hour. Such results could be applies to female industrial workers in order to prevent a cumulative trauma disorder of the back, and also to design a female dress shoes minimizing low back fatigue.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.43-55
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• 1999

In today's society, many women wear high-heeled shoes, but the effect of heel height on lumbar lordosis has not been clearly defined. The objective of this study was to identify the influence of heel height and general characteristics of subjects on lumbar lordosis. The subjects of this study were 40 healthy women who were students of the Department of Physical Therapy, College of Rehabilitation Science, Taegu University. Flexible ruler measurement was used to measure the lumbar lordosis at barefoot, 3 cm and 7 cm high-heeled standing positions. The results were as follows: 1) Significant statistical decrease in lumbar lordosis was observed as heel heights were increased from barefoot to 7 cm high heel. 2) There were no statistically significant differences between lumbar lordosis according to three different heel heights and weight, body mass index. 3) Lumbar lordosis measured at different heel heights was related to subject's height. With increasing subject's height, lumbar lordosis that measured from each heel height was significantly decreased. As heel heights were increased from barefoot to 7 cm high heel, significant statistical decrease in lumbar lordosis was observed in the subjects whose height were 151~160 cm. 4) Intrarater reliability on lumbar lordosis taken with a flexible ruler was good, with Cronbach ${\alpha}$ values of 0.8971 for barefoot, 0.8107 for 3 cm and 0.9002 for 7 cm high-heeled standing positions.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2012

Purpose : This study was conducted to identify the effects of high heel shoes on surface electromyography(EMG) activities fo tibialis anterior(TA), soles(S), and gastrocnemius(G) in 12 healthy women. Methods : Subjects were composed of three group(sports shoes, 5cm heel height shoes, and 9cm heel height shoes). The muscle activity of the TA, G, S in the lower leg were measured using a surface EMG. Results : Results of one way repeated measures ANOVA of the after waling 30minutes standing task duration among the sport shoes, 5cm, and 9cm heel height conditions. The comparison of the muscular activities showed significant differences in the G muscles among the high heel shoes. Conclusion : Wearing high heel shoes for hours will bring inappropriate alignment of the lower limbs and cause postural changes or abnormal sensation and several other problems in the body, resulting in exposure to ankle sprain or fall injuries.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.613-624
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• 2001

Backgroun and purpose: The purpose of this study was to find out the effect of high heel shoes on lumbar lordosis for young ladies. The most of ladies wear high heel shoes at least 4 to 5 days a week. Subjects: Subjects were 30 young ladies age between 20 to 30 years old who go to the Sahm Yook University. Methods: Participants were static standing position with bear feet, tennis shoes. and 6cm high heel shoes each different time. The ankles of subjects were 15 degree plantar flexion with 6cm high heel shoes. Metrecom Skeletal Analysis System v. 3. 10 was used to measure the lordosis of each subject. Results: The angle of the lordosis with high heel shoes showed the significant decrease omparing with the angle of lordosis with bear feet and tennis shoes. The mean difference is 2.57 degree. Conclusion: There is strong relationship between the high of heel with decreasing the lumbar lordosis(p<0.05).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.21-28
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• 1986

This paper is concerned with the mutual relationship among interpressure, last. foot within a new shoe and foot within a fifty-hour-used shoe at the standing posture at three different heel-heights 1. The interrelationship between the heel-heights and interpressure is very significant at the level of $0.1\%$. The heel-heights cause high interpressure at different parts of foot; heel point and big toe point in a 3 cm-heel shoe, big toe point and heel outside joint point in a 5 cm-heel shoe, and little toe point, heel-outside joint point, and arch point in a 7 cm-heel shoe. 2. Foot girth and foot width measurements either within a new shoe or within a fifty-hour-used shoe significant at the level of $5\%,\;1\%,\;0.1\%$ and show discrepancies at three different heel heights; the part between instep and ball joint in a 3 cm-heel shoe, toe part in a 5 cm-heel shoe, heel-inside joint. heel-outside joint and toe part in a 7 cm-heel shoe are highly influenced by heel heights. The higher the shoe-hee15 are, the more heavily the fore part of foot is pressured in lateral direction because shoe is made to have high instep from a fashion viewpoint. Higher shoe heels prevent weight pressure from being concentrated on heel. If shoe heels are toe high, people in such shoes feel easily tired. It is very worthy of note in selecting shoes to consider not only the shoe fashion but also fore shoe type, heel height, and shoe material with proper elasticity.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to evaluate effects of the balance ability on the heel height (flat, low heel[3cm], and high heel[7cm]) and high heeled habituation (group A is used to a low heeled shoes (<7cm) and group B is used to a high heeled shoes (${\geq}7cm$). Thirty-five subjects participated in this study. In this study, the static balance with opened eyes and closed eyes and dynamic balance were measured. Also functional reach test was tested. The results found that the static balance ability was the best in a 7cm heeled shoes with open eyes and closed eyes, but there was not significant difference between group A and Group B. Dynamic balance ability with walking velocity and cadence were significant difference between Group A and B. In the walking velocity, a flat was the fastest, followed by 7cm heel and 3cm heel with Group A while 3cm and 7cm, then a flat with Group B. Also Cadence pattern was similar. Functional balance ability was the highest with a flat, but it was not difference significantly between Group A and B. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the habituation to the high heel altered gait velocity and cadence of dynamic balance ability.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 2016

Objective: This paper investigates gait changes according to different heel heights and speeds, and the interaction between the effects of the heel height and the speed during walking on stride parameters and joint angles. Furthermore, the relationship among heel height, speed and gait variables is investigated using linear regression. Background: Gait changes by heel height or speed have been studied respectively, but has not been reported whether there is an interaction effect between heel height and speed. It would be necessary to understand how gait changes when a person wears heels in different heights at various speeds, for example, high-heeled walking at fast speed, since it may cause unusual gait patterns and musculoskeletal disorders. Method: Ten females were asked to walk at five fixed cadences (94, 106, 118, 130 and 142 steps/min.) wearing three shoes with different heel heights (1, 5.4 and 9.8cm). Nineteen gait variables were analyzed for stride parameters and joint angles using two-way repeated measure analysis of variance and regression analysis. Results: Both heel height and speed affect movement of ankle, knee, spine and elbow joint, as well as stride length and Double/Single support time ratio. However, there is no significant interaction effect between heel height and speed. The regression result shows linear relationships of gait variables with heel height and speed. Conclusion: Heel height and speed independently affect stride parameters and joint angles without a significant interaction, so the gait variables are linearly amplified or diminished by the two factors. Application: Walking in high heels at fast speed should be careful for musculoskeletal disorders, since the amplified movement of knee and spine joint can lead to increased moment. Also, the result might give insight for animators or engineers to generate walking motion with high heels at various speeds.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.593-601
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• 2009

The goal of this study was to investigate the lower extremity's coordination determined by temporal relations with increasing high-heel (3, 7, 9cm) while walking on a treadmill. Twelve healthy women who walked on a treadmill under three conditionswearing 3cm high-heel shoes, 7cm, and 9cm-while kinematic data were collected using a six-cameras (240Hz) Qualisys ProReflex System. From these data, knee flexion, tibia internal rotation, and foot eversion were calculated in Euler technique and found the time for occurring the maximum angle of these movements. The maximum angle of these movements occurred almost simultaneously in 3cm high-heel walking, but not in 7cm and 9cm. The ratio of time for maximum angle of the foot eversion to tibia internal rotation converged to 1 in 3cm high-heel walking, but were less than 1 in 7cm and 9cm. In conclusion, it was indicated that 3cm high-heel walking had better the lower extremity's coordination compared with 7, 9cm high-heel walking.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.65 no.7
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• pp.86-100
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• 2015

This study is to investigate the relationships between heel height and macro-economic factors - recession and unemployment; and to analyze the time lags reflecting economic factors on heel height index using U.S. data. The life-history evolution theory was applied to propose the relationships studied. The data for the heel height measurements of women's shoes - pump style only - were obtained from US Vogue fashion editorial sections on spring and fall editions from 1950 to 2014. I divided the heel height by the length of the shoes in order to standardize the data. Total of 1581 samples were used, and heel height data were aggregated to create a yearly average. To explore the relationships between macro-economic factors and heel height, this study used OLS of Stata 13 program. The main findings show that unemployment rates influenced heel height for three years in a positive direction. Furthermore, the effects of unemployment rate from two years ago on the current heel height were very close to being on a significant level.

• Journal of Korean Foot and Ankle Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.76-81
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• 1998

Chiefly, painful heel syndrome is observed at old age. Many possible reasons were bursitis, plantar fasciitis, calcaneal periostitis around the calcaneus and achilles tendon. But the exact cause was not clearly identified due to complexity of subcalcaneal pain mechanism. The incidence of calcaneal spur and overweight were significant in painful heel syndrome. Our purpose of this study was analysis of underlyng cause and correlation about bony spur and overweight in painful heel syndrome. The author used incidence of heel spur on painful heel syndrome and body mass index to evaluate overweight. The material is 55 cases of painful heel syndrome patients and 60 cases of control group. Bony spur was one of the cause of painful heel syndrome. Body weight and calcaneal spur was developing factors on painful heel syndrome. And the result was as follows. 1. Spur formation incidence is 35 cases (63.6 %) in painful heel syndrome, 8 cases (13.3%) in normal control group. So, patient's group is significantly high (p<0.01). 2. Body mass index is 26.48 in painful heel syndromes, 21.75 in normal control groups. Overweight above index 27 is 22 cases (40%) in painful heel syndromes, 3 cases (5%) m normal control groups. So, patient's group is significantly high (p<0.01). 3. In painful heel syndrome, tenderness site is 46 cases (83.6%) in medial calcaneal tuberosity, 4 cases (7.3%) in central calcaneal tuberosity, 1 cases (1.8%) in both site. 4. Underlying causes of painful heel syndrome is 19 cases (34.5%) in plantar fasciitis, 16 cases (29.1%) in calcaneal periostitis, 11 cases (20%) in bursitis, 4 cases (7.3%) in tendinitis, 2 cases (3.6%) in entrapment neuropathy.