Biomechanical Basis of Human Movement, 2nd ed.

Hamill J, Knutzen KM. Baltimore, MD 21201, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins,

2003, hardcover, 479 pp, illus, ISBN: 0-7817-3405-3, $69.95.

The text's 3 sections address basic neuromuscular and musculoskeletal anatomy and function, regional functional anatomy, and elementary quantitative principles of biomechanics. The coverage is very broad, but uneven. Because the authors attempt to explain many topics in a relatively brief text, they cannot provide the detail that is necessary to clarify many concepts. Furthermore, the vast majority of their references (a mixture of primary and secondary sources) are more than 10 years old. Perhaps it is not surprising, given the authors' academic roots in exercise science and physical education, that many references that physical therapists would expect to find are absent from the text.

Although the book provides many examples of exercise and is profusely illustrated, many of these examples focus on the use of free weights. In each section, the authors revisit examples that relate to walking, wheelchair propulsion, and the golf swing. These examples are meant to illustrate a host of biomechanical concepts. Even with repetition, however, the treatment of these concepts is superficial; for instance, a therapist could not discern in these examples the basics of gait analysis or the principles underlying intervention for a patient with a gait disorder.

The book's 3 sections are incompletely integrated. One striking example involves a discussion of the ground reaction force, which the authors introduce in the book's third and most detailed biomechanical section. They do not use the concept to clarify joint mechanics in the sections on functional anatomy; however. Instead of explaining subtalar motion by analyzing the ground reaction force's location with respect to the joints axis, they use a dated and much less economical explanation that invokes two nonaligned forces. It is as though the book's sections were written by different people, and the content was never integrated.

The book also uses many conventions that physical therapists will have to translate. For instance, the authors consistently name movements according to body segments (eg, "flexion of the thigh") instead of referring to the joints where motions actually occur. They speak of ligaments' "actions," even though any forces that ligaments create are purely passive.

The book's most positive attribute is its third section, "Mechanical Analysis of Human Motion," which accounts for 200 of its pages and introduces quantitative tools for analyzing human movement. As in the other 2 sections, the coverage is broad but not deep. The material's complexity is at the level where most physical therapist education programs expect their students to be when they begin their professional education. Nevertheless, the section is a valuable primer for new students who feel somewhat uncomfortable with their prerequisite courses in physics or mechanics and who want to benefit from examples that relate to the human body and its capacity for movement.

David M Thompson, PT

University of Oklahoma Health Sciences

Center

Oklahoma City, Okla

Mr Thompson formerly was a faculty member in physical therapy at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, where he taught biomechanics and wrote a textbook chapter on the rehabilitation of people with transfemoral amputations. He is currently a doctoral student in biostatistics.