Advances in the application of gait analysis in objective evaluation of myelopathy in degenerative cervical spondylosis: A literature review

Degenerative cervical diseases are the most common cause of non-traumatic spinal cord dysfunction in adults, with degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) being the most severe form. Gait analysis is an objective and effective tool for assessing gait function in patients with cervical myelopathy, which can not only support diagnosis and assess disease severity but also evaluate surgical outcomes and post-surgical recovery. This paper reviews the progress of gait analysis in the objective evaluation of cervical myelopathy. A search was conducted in databases including CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, Embase, and PubMed, covering literature from January 2015 to September 2024. The Search terms included ((gait) OR (gait analysis) AND ((Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy) OR (Ossification of the Posterior Longitudinal Ligament DCM) OR (degenerative disc disease) OR (ossification of the ligamentum flavum) OR (cervical)). Case reports were excluded. A total of 98 articles were identified. The studies included clinical research comparing gait patterns in DCM patients and healthy controls, series of studies evaluating gait changes before and after surgical decompression, and studies exploring prognostic prediction through gait analysis, with 10 articles being included in the final review.